Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid
by LowerBlack
Summary: Reborn into a disturbingly dysfunctional family that is not my own, I now take upon the name "Ignis". Amidst power struggles in Nohr, poor communications and a country in decay, I will do anything to steer my siblings into a brighter future - hopefully before our own home swallows us whole. For them, I march onward. [Self-Insert]
1. Magnolia

**Track 1: Magnolia**

I read once that nothing's certain, that no matter how much we prepare there is just so much we can do before something, whether human or not, kicks back. I'm not quite sure myself how it happened, and I prefer not to think too much about it because no matter how hard I try, the fundamentally pessimist part of me prevails and pushes me down into a tortuous road of uncertainty, because I simply could not ever hope to explain how I ended up like this. I often heard, heck, I myself preached and practiced that at times of adversity it's best to make good out of a bad situation, offer the other cheek and move along, because there's so much you can get out of self-inspection and reflection when you instead could be moving onwards.

Yet, whatever superior forces did this to me must be laughing their hearts out at going at it in the most direct, acid, and quite possibly malicious, of ways as if to challenge that notion I used to live by.

Dragons, God, Deities, Cthulhu, Magical Girl, however or whatever sent me here, I hate you.

Anyways, let me introduce myself once and for all.

My name nowadays is Ignis Perdido Cavaliere du Nohr.

Which is just peachy, since I know for certain that isn't my true name. Not only is it corny as all hell, and I seriously want to give a piece of my mind to whoever came with such a ridiculous moniker- er, sorry, current-mother, bless your heart but I hate my name to be perfectly honest; but the most important thing I know for certain is that that name does not belong to my person.

Allow me to explain in detail before I ramble for longer than I already have. I know I have a thing for derailment.

I was, for a lack of a better term, reincarnated in another world. Yes, like many of those stories floating around the various places I know I used to frequent (though the finer details as of actually _how_ I did so remain vague, damn you selective amnesia!). I know I had a name and a life before all of this, because goddammit I refuse to act like a child again and not trust myself when I've literally been self-aware for almost all of my second life. Between haunting and eerily displaced memories, I have an understanding of the world that no 5 year old should have.

There's also the fact that the memories that keep pestering me at every minute sort of click with me, or more like resonate. It's hard to explain in words, but the closest analogy I can think of is that they just seem to meld well together like pieces of a broken glass put together like a puzzle. The original glass is irrecoverable, but it's clear that it had a shape and form at some point, even if putting together the shards is by all means a tortuous and downright convoluted process (and quite possibly impossible, but the optimist in me will keep persevering or I will just break the hell down otherwise), especially since I am still missing key parts of that puzzle, those key parts being actual names and faces to attach to the memories. I know I had a family and a life before this, mostly because I remember going well through puberty and adolescence into adulthood, but for some reason the farther I try to go forward into my life, the more pieces I find missing.

I don't know what happened between my previous life and reincarnation, and it's as frustrating as it can get, but again, I'm working with what I have. It's a work in progress.

One hell of a work in progress, indeed, but one that doesn't stop. Though I'm quite certain, cynicism notwithstanding, that it's mostly because I literally have a lot on my plate for a five year old.

Namely, just surviving the goddamn night.

I guess it is part of the package of being a royal, though "royal" may be a bit misleading. Let's just say that my current familiar situation is… atrocious, to put it generously.

Namely because I'm a goddamn toddler who creeps the shit out of every adult I interact with, including my own dear mother, and about 99% of the adults not named my mother are trying to murder me.

I'm being serious there. There's quite a bunch of sickos running around the halls and rooms of Castle Krakenburg.

Oh joy, of all the settings I could have been reincarnated to, why did it have to be Fire Emblem Fates of all? Why couldn't it be something more… I don't know… dangerous? Hell, I'd have taken a normal dungeon crawler or RPG focused on saving the world with the power of friendship or something- wait, basically this qualifies as that. Hmmm…

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure being reincarnated into 7th Dragon or Etrian Odyssey is much better. Those ones can get surprisingly real, not to mention I don't want to start running into bullshit bosses every other Tuesday.

Ugh, derailed again.

To try to place this trainwreck back on track, I was reborn as one of the many, and I mean MANY children of King Garonstrud Asterios du Nohr XI. I'm not even sure that name was a thing in the games, but who am I to grasp at that kind of straws? I got bigger things to worry about.

Namely, surviving this whole Concubine Wars fiasco.

I have many half siblings across the castle, and let's just say a worrying percentage of them will not quite have the chance of seeing their dreams through, or even form dreams of their own, period, and I understandably don't want to be part of that group. I know, I know, what a shocker. For all of past me being quite a pessimist and downright impassionate asshole, suddenly having the threat of your sunnyside eggs being poisoned, having to stay away from the libraries and halls out of fear for falling furniture and chandeliers, seeing that the nice old maid who used to play with you now looks at you with mirth and jollily hop towards you with a butcher knife in hand, or heck, just being unable to sleep due to the fear of someone laying the killing blow is not how I expected to live my second childhood.

I hate Nohr. I hate this life, heck, I'd be tempted to say I hate this whole family, the other kids can go shove it.

….Sorry, Elise. You still haven't joined the madness, and if canon is to take place, you'll surely be able to grow up without this kind of torture, because that is what this is.

I can't bear to look at my own "mother" in the eye. An average noblewoman from a minor house, she became entangled in this web of deception, destruction and killing in hopes of helping "the honor of her house". I… can't tell if she loves me even, and you have no idea how soul-crushing it is, especially since I have the memories of my other life for comparison.

All the stupidity I provoked and righteous punishments I received cannot be remotely compared to this hellhole.

Why couldn't I have been born later, when all this is over? I don't get it, I don't understand anything of this stupid situation of petty women trying to woo a king who doesn't look at them and instead grieves day and night, unable to do anything for the children he wishes he could cherish between his own anguish for the late Queen Katherina and the power plays that go behind the scenes.

Arete, Azura, I do not envy your positions, and I don't know what to do.

I'm… honest to goodness paralyzed by fear. I can only care for myself. I have to do it, or else I'll break too.

You know, for someone who used to love bashing how shallow and stupid Fates was as a story, the darker elements were always a bit too real. And now I'm part of this truly horrible era of what once was just a pastime to me.

So allow me to pretend for a moment that all my snark and bravado are real. That I will survive this.


	2. Valor and Vision

**Track 2: Valor and Vision**

Many things happened when Xander hit his 10th birthday. In that year I was 7, Leo was treading just behind me at a tender 6, Camilla even more so with just a few months of difference to me, and Elise nowhere nearby. Then there were other children. Fernand, Harold, Norbert, Elizabeth, Alma, and quite a few more what-are-even-their-faces I had seen in passing, and honestly, hadn't really tried to get to know myself. Hell, to even call myself close to any of the three siblings that would form part of canon (provided I don't derail things just by merely existing) would be completely untrue.

By that point, I think I had found some sort of… I can't say normalcy with good conscience, but routine also doesn't feel quite right either. Anyway, I think the best option to say is that I had set a pace for myself: Wake up early before the first clouds start thundering, wash myself in just below 10 minutes, be ready for breakfast in the main dining hall (and God, how I hated breakfast), immerse myself in whatever classes my tutors had planned for me for the day, survive through the morning lessons, have a much needed break on my own, then crawl through the physical lessons of the evening, avoiding as many "accidents" with the training equipment as well as my fellow classmates as I could, keep the evasion streak going by not talking to any and all staff not working directly under my mother (and even then my mother was quite adamant on me not talking to any of the members sent directly from her house either), hope that Garon won't summon all the children and concubines to dine together, whimper miserably when it inevitably happens, eat amidst a heavy atmosphere and the judgmental gazes of the harpies, eat everything as fast as I can without giving the witches anything to complain about, fail again, apologize and fake a smile when I'm told for the hundredth time that my jaw should move however it should be doing, that my elbows are too high, that I shouldn't twitch so much, and so on and on, excuse myself at the first chance, wash myself for the last time of the day, report my activities to the last minute detail to my mother, receive her instructions, go to sleep. Rinse and repeat.

Much to my chagrin, my efforts were often interrupted and made futile. Living with a sixth sense for danger was mandatory, as expected. Three of my siblings (at the very least) know now that poison comes in many forms. Why does it have to be poison? Between that, outright assassinations during their sleep and "tragic accidents", a big chunk of children have been dying in just the two years since I officially started my education. The caretakers and maids think we don't notice, but I'm completely sure most of us understand in some way or form.

It's quite a blunder getting to have actual freaking magic when your teacher cancels class every third day due to a death in the family. Then again, these interruptions _are_ becoming less frequent.

And the worst part? I think I'm getting used to it, as bizarre as it sounds. I remember from my previous life a phrase that said something along the lines of "humans are the only species capable of adapting to any situation, given that if the environment doesn't suit them, they transform it to suit their needs". There's also the part that some part of my old memories are hauntingly letting the situation sit in. I clearly remember a time of my life when there were mass killings due to crime from the drug cartels and their trafficking. It went to a point in which seeing the daily dozens of executions became just a morbid part of my every day of that life.

Damn world, you scary!

In a way, I have desensitized myself to it, which is why I'm afraid to truly reach out to my brothers and sisters. If the game is anything to go by, all the Nohrian siblings, save for maybe Elise, have deep seated issues stemming from this hellhole we call home. If I'm not misremembering, Camilla took on the doting mother/sister role to make up for the love she didn't receive from her mother, who then falls into fits of inhuman brutality to let out her repressed anger, while Leo and Xander became stone cold once their positions as the "genius tactician prince" and actual "crown prince" demanded everything from them down to their cores, and grew into resentment for Leo and a form of apathy in Xander.

I certainly wish I could talk about this to someone, but hey, I'm the token creepy child of the castle. Which begs the question: Where the hell does Ignis Perdido fit within the royal family of Nohr? Is that a question a seven year old should be asking in the first place? Hell if I know. I'm working with what I have, and to be honest, having the mind of an adult does wonders for self-inspection when most of the adults you interact with assume your head is filled by the thoughts of a 7 year old.

…A façade that will be running out soon enough, probably a lot sooner than I think. I know the looks that the mothers of a few children are giving me. They know I'm smarter than I appear to be, and that many of my responses are practiced. I'm not a good actor, regardless of what my life demands of me. I'm not like my mother or the other concubines- hell, I'm not nor will I ever be like Xander.

As a silent observer, it's been such a weird thing growing alongside those once were just fictional characters, and even weirder seeing Xander go from a bright kid to the paragon he appears to be later in his adulthood. I can't help but both admire and pity him.

Coming back to our ages, I'm technically one of the oldest siblings that remain. Whether it is a combination of my mother's, my own, or some divine efforts, I've survived all this time whereas those older than me have all been slowly dying off. I still remember Wallace and Valliere in particular, two of the only older children who ever deigned words to me, even if Wallace's were… less than savory to say the least. Poor guy had his head stuck in his ass, convinced that he could take the crown prince position for himself, but I want to think that it was all due to his mother's laced words doing him bad. How can I hate a kid for being a kid?

Wallace ended impaled on a fence gate during a horseback practice when I was 6. I don't want to know if it was truly an accident or not. Both options are heart-breaking.

As for Valliere? I sincerely hope she's doing well. Her mother is no longer with us, having died to a slit throat in her sleep. Both were truly sweet even to me, a pair of lights in this maze. Valliere was taken away by her grandparents quietly during one night. I saw it myself, and said nothing of it. As far as the concubines are concerned, it's one less thing to worry about. Valliere and her mother were by all means commoners, and don't have any form of power within the court.

As one of the surviving older children, I'm at a bit of a crux. As more of the older children were offed through the years, both myself and Xander, and the surviving kids in-between our ages (number which will start thinning down if canon is to take place, and I sincerely hope Camilla doesn't take my place as the lower limit in this measurement someday), we become more important targets for the mothers with younger children simply by process of elimination. The day Xander reaches 16 will inevitably come, which is when I've been told he'll be presented officially as the Crown Prince and most likely receive Siegfried. I'm not quite sure when Brynhildr will be passed down to Leo either.

Xander has protected his life quite well, if I say so myself, and everyone knows that. As _the_ son of Queen Katherina, all the concubines know better than to try and approach him like they would other children. For all his grief and mountain loads of work as the King of Nohr, if there's one person Garon has zealously kept an eye on, it's his firstborn.

So I still have at the very least 6 more years to survive, if my remembrance of the events is correct and Xander will put down the concubine wars for good as I expect it to happen.

The year Xander was 10 was also the year the first attempt towards him, the crown prince, reached directly the ears and eyes of Garon. Not that it wasn't the first, oh dear no. Out of all of the living children at the time, Xander's life was surely one of the most threatened on a daily basis. I have silently observed for years how he's hardened himself, and I personally was there when Alma's mother was executed by her father in a fit of rage.

I don't think I'll ever forget Alma's screams, or Arete's desperate pleas, and even less the woman's last moments. I distinctly remember Camilla and Leo standing dead still, with the former averting her eyes from the scene and having her arm twisted red by her own mother, and the latter standing completely dumbfounded. How the hell is a 6 year old supposed to process an execution live and direct? I myself spent quite a number of sleepless nights after that, with the shrieks of Alma's mother cursing every one of us, her poor daughter, the other concubines, Garon himself to never find peace in this or any life.

That was the first and last time Garon showed kindness to me as well.

Speaking of, how was even Garon as a father?

Surprisingly, like Xander, I got the chance to interact with Garon before he was replaced with whatever monstrosity Corrin would later come to face against. And it broke me further to have known him in his good years, knowing what awaited him.

Garonstrud Asterios XI was a complicated man, to say the very least. He was a man of pure discipline and willpower, like he was a character pulled straight out of a Greek myth. He was peerless, incredibly driven and focused, devoted to his land completely. To be a bit romantic, Garon in his prime was downright grander than life, and represented the "Nohrian Glory" absolutely. He was blunt and completely out of touch with his emotions, but he was nonetheless an amazing leader. I'd never had hopes of ever involving myself in the Royal Court, but of course, as one of his many sons, there were certain expectations placed on me, many which required my presence in certain times. He inspired hope and charmed his followers with his unyielding fire even when faced amidst the harsh times. Maybe if I had been born without the knowledge I have, I wouldn't have hesitated to try and fill in his footsteps.

But then, what happened? What made such an incredible man fall from grace? That's another tale.

Nohr is a dying land that thrives on conquest for survival. From my studies regarding Nohrian history, it seems basically a retelling of most major countries from my original world (even if my knowledge is skewered a bit). To put it short, because history is definitely not one of my fortes, Nohr began more or less as a conglomerate of strong tribes that gathered under a single banner after quite literally the opposition was dead. Following that was a slow but steady expansion towards the east, caused mainly because, well, to lay it down brutally, the superior forces seem to hate Nohrian territory with a passion. I'm no expert on geology or meteorology and the like, but it seems Nohr is destined to be a shithole to the end. Crops grow slowly, and if they do, their quality is mediocre to say the least, which in return makes raising livestock a herculean task in and on itself save for a few species like goats who thrive on specific mountainsides, or pigs who can eat basically anything. Rain is scarce and so are lush plains, with the whole country being seemingly engulfed in a perpetual twilight. I've picked up on a rather crude saying that goes "When that happens it'll be the day Krakenburg sees the sun", one that er… my mother has been quite adamant of taking away from me.

Anyways, the Nohrian economy is based mainly on the acquisition of goods via conquest and integration of smaller territories, to afterwards try and export their resources until the supply runs dry. Compromises or balance are hardly ever achieved due to the treacherous territory, of course; our supplies are limited and running short each passing day. Or at least this is what I piece together. As a child I'm not allowed to leave the castle or involve myself with the masses (not that I would readily do it, to be perfectly honest), so I only have the retellings of the books and the lessons from the teachers.

Of course, this is just an (mostly un)educated guess from a cynical adult stuck in a child's body, but there's so many times I'll be told "And the Nohrians marched bravely against the enemy territory of X" before the pattern becomes obvious. I don't think I'll ever finish "History of Nohr: Volume I of X" myself either (and here I thought Baldor was insane), but having a general understanding of the world around me will be vital in the future.

Uh, provided I survive, of course.

This whole picture, however, is something that Garon is bitterly aware of, surely more than I'll ever hope to grasp, and I assume it's his biggest source of turmoil. Nohr is a war-founded country first and foremost, but nowadays that may just not be an option. If my memories of the game are correct, when supplied by my knowledge attained by actually being here, it won't be long before Nohr runs into a metaphorical wall, either by stepping foot into the various neutral countries like Cyrkensia or Izumo, or pissing off our understandably strained "supporters" and "allies" enough that they cut ties off with us completely. There's so much that the threat of war can do on these circumstances, as both the supporters and Garon know that going to town will only result in mutual destruction, immediate for the poor schmucks that will be caught in the crossfire, and Nohr as a whole in the long run by razing the already poor land. No one will bet their chances on restoring any lost land.

Damn, looking again I don't know how the hell Garon slept at night, or if he did at all. I don't have to worry about all this as technically I am a kid, but I'm _not _going to remain clueless if I can help it.

I guess it's because of this and more that I feel a modicum of pity for the man. As someone who never quite achieved much in his previous life and has never truly fully understood the weight of responsibility outside of his own person and immediate circle, having a whole nation depend on you is something that evades me and can only imagine with half a mind.

Many things happened when Xander hit his 10th birthday. In that year I was 7, Leo was treading just behind me at a tender 6, Camilla even more so with just a few months of difference to me, and Elise nowhere nearby.

Many things happened when I was 7 years old. During this time I got to understand more of the world around me as I finally grasped the written Nohrian language. It was also the time I knew for certain I would stop seeing my father smile after he himself executed Alma's mother.

It would be the start of the bloodiest part of the Concubine Wars, which would only end after Xander himself took reign of the situation, it would also mark the start of my increasingly desperate attempts and failures to avoid more tragedies.

And it would also be the time I would ascend to being Ignis, 2nd Prince of Nohr, because just after becoming 8, on the eve of Camilla's birthday, just a few months after mine, I also committed fratricide for the first time.


	3. Deep Red

**Track 3: Deep Red**

The day Arete disappeared without a trace would be the final nail in the coffin to set the original story onwards, and that was one of the key events I was determined to stop by any means necessary. It would certainly send canon off the rails, but at the point I decided I would stop that, I was manic.

And it all was because I had murdered one of my siblings right on Camilla's birthday.

His name, I found out later after the act was done, was Victor Artemis du Nohr, and was about a year older. He had always been one of the quieter children even among the silent ones like Leo (and back then poor Leo was a mangle of nerves, quieter than the night breeze). I never got to know him personally; we hadn't ever given a word to each other but for the basest of courtesies when the dining hall accommodations demanded so. Victor never spoke a word during lessons unless the tutors specifically called him, but either way was well on his way to be the first among us to try Thunder magic, which was a pretty big deal. Our main tutor, Iago Macbeth (Yes, THAT Iago), who by that time still had his whole face and a hopeful glint in his eyes, often ridiculed all of us by calling us trash in comparison to Victor. Yet at the same time, he backslapped the kid by calling him a weakling for his quiet personality. Leo still hadn't shown aptitude for magic, being that he had just begun out and had a whole year of material to catch up on, and surprisingly, he didn't pick it up immediately.

As for myself, I soon found out, quite before anyone told me, that I'd be average at best.

I was and still am unremarkable in every martial and magical sense, and honestly, I was fine with it to a degree. I want to think it was due to my older mind and younger body having trouble "synchronizing" or something among those lines. I was often reprimanded by both my fencing and magic teachers that I tended to cut out important basics during my training in an effort to go directly to the result. It was more a problem of discipline and mindset coming from learning at a slower pace, because while my mind could by all means learn, I seemed to have trouble relaying the information to my body, so I tried (and mostly failed) to compensate by taking shortcuts where I could, something that never went unnoticed by my tutors; they were the best in Nohr, after all.

My one strong forte was that my older mind allowed higher focus, but to be less pretentious about it, I just had a different form of patience. Whereas the other kids relied on pure instinct and instruction, I had a bunch of habits ingrained quite deep into me, which got me a lot of punishments in the process of unlearning myself out of them.

I had to adapt, and so I did to the best of my abilities. At a slow and arduous pace that was way too evident.

Which was first noticed by one Graciela Sorel. Mrs. Sorel was an elderly woman renowned for bringing in the rowdiest of noble boys and girls and grooming them into presentable members for high society. In blunt terms, Mrs. Sorel hovered about us like a vulture at all times - while at our desks, eating at our table, and even during and after our combat sessions - and beat "unsightly" manners out of us via good ol' sessions a' whippin'. She also instructed us in a variety of things, from dancing, to table manners, etiquette, to even bathroom manners (One thing I think I won't ever be able to get over).

Now, as a disclaimer I was never one of the most refined persons in my old life. I want to think I just had common sense, if a bit of a crude tongue that often got me in trouble (not a sharp one, just a rather a blunt mouth prone to profanity), but I often survived social meetings by virtue of blending into the background. Now then, as a Nohrian Prince, that wouldn't fly, and it was made difficult by a number of reasons. First being that among my mostly blond brothers and sisters, and Nohrians in general, I tended to stick out due to my dark hair and piercing copper red eyes. It was a bit surprising that even with Camilla's lovely lilac mane when we were all lined together, I stood out like a sore thumb because of my hair and eyes, both part of my inheritance from my mother's family. My facial structure is similar to Xander's, which I've heard is in return similar to Garon's back when he was in his youth and didn't sport such a voluminous beard, but due to the way I've been styling my hair (combed backwards and gelled), it's a bit hard to see much resemblance between us unless looking closely. I would never pass as a Hoshidan, mind you, but it was certain that I had a bit of mixed ancestry in me (which I heard was what attracted Garon to my mother in the first place).

The second one was that, due to my memories of my old life being ingrained in such strange ways (damn you, past me!) I had to work twice as hard with my habits. If my memories don't lie to me, I never had to worry about anything other than being downright savage when eating. I used my forks and knives accordingly and ate with my mouth closed, but that just wasn't good enough for Mrs. Sorel. Corporal punishment was a common practice in Nohr, and I got me quite a number of scars on the back of both my hands and my back to attest to it. Those were the most brutal of them all. We would be whipped each time on both hands for taking the wrong fork, twice on each hand if so much of the middle of our fingers reached the handles, and thrice for both hands and twice on the back if we didn't keep the correct posture when eating. The worst part? She wouldn't do it right away, oh dear no. All of us accrued a tally of whippings and would receive them daily during the end of our morning classes, tallies we all had to keep a close eye on, even Xander. Mrs. Sorel would ask us each how many whippings we had accumulated, and if we were off by just a single digit, we would be forced to do additional chores, never more whippings, for some inane reason, but additional homework and essays that were by all means mundane and soulcrushing busywork. I guessed it was because there was so much physical damage she could do to us before it interfered with our fencing lessons. And the cherry on top was that Mrs. Sorel seemed particularly delighted in screwing the kids she didn't like. I was one of the children in her shitlist.

My ancestry was never explicitly used against me, but something about just my appearance seemed to piss her off, and she was outright the one who took the most leverage out of it. It's not like my family tree was a secret, heck, my mother belonged to a minor noble house, so any of the teachers, or the concubines and even their children would surely find it up if they looked.

One day, I was given the delightful title of "The Below Average Prince" both as a mocking of my performance in my classes as well as my ancestry. It was quite backhanded of her, if I do say so myself.

All hell broke loose when my mother heard of this not too long after. Let it be known that Sol Grimwood (Grimwood I found out later was my mother's maiden name as well as that of her household, and as a concubine didn't have the right to take the du Nohr name for herself like Queen Arete would) is proud of her lineage and her family's achievements. It's the reason I have the second name Perdido too, which I also learned was the name of my grandfather who was a high ranking officer in the Royal Army before he retired due to tuberculosis and a lost leg about a decade and a half ago. My mother took to Mrs. Sorel and thoroughly berated her, and was bitterly retorted back. I don't remember the whole shouting match, but the important part is that it devolved into a series of insults where Mrs. Sorel mocked my mother that for all of her lineage and history, she was just a no name courtesan that would never have a hand in the crown, and that my "dirty blood" was better off in the sewers.

Mrs. Sorel was found dead by multiple stab wounds not even a day later. My mother was arrested for murdering an esteemed educator when they found a suspicious knife in her chambers. I remember the last thing she told me was that I should always be proud of my ancestry and shouldn't let anything stop my ambitions, that I should aim for more, for the top and beyond.

A few days later, I overheard the maids gossiping that my mother hung herself in her cell.

For the children of Garon, there was nothing worse than losing their mother for their sense if security. As much as I hate to admit it, my mother was an enormous safety umbrella for me. She had always been a choleric one, guided more by her ambitions and emotions than actual reason or planning, but she was nonetheless cunning, so cunning and driven enough to not be stopped and hang herself. Perhaps even more than any of that though, was a love for her family as a name. My mother rarely talked about her time before Garon, but there was always this bizarre warmth when she reminisced about her father and mother, as well as her siblings. I still remember many stories of my grandfather Perdido in particular, who my mother was always happy to talk about.

Looking back, those were the only times I could bear to look at her in the eye.

I never truly hated her. She had been also a complicated woman, something I understood from the beginning due to my particular situation, being reincarnated and all. She birthed me, and though she did use me as a tool to try and claim the throne like many of her fellow concubines, she protected me to the end, even if she lost it all.

And all of that had been a motherfucking ploy by none other than Victor's mother. I didn't know then if my mother had truly murdered Mrs. Sorel or not, nor did I ever found out, nor want to know, or if she did hang herself or someone set her up, but back then I didn't care. With a rage that I didn't know I would be able to muster for anyone in this crapsack family, I wanted revenge.

And if there's something I'm quite bad at, even after being reincarnated, it's handling anger. It was at that moment that I realized how ironic it was that anger was the one thing that resonated the most with both my previous and current lives.

Of course, being just an 8 year old, freshly made an orphan, I couldn't just up and go on a rampage to claim revenge. I had to play it safe if I wanted to live to tell the tale.

And that's where I fucked up.

In hindsight, I should have realized it would end badly, but again, anger made me short-sighted, and as much as I want to refute otherwise, at some point I stopped caring if I took someone innocent down with me, which made me concoct one of the stupidest plans ever that worked.

I took the death of my mother the best as I could and started planning (Read: I did so badly). Now that she was out of the equation I had to act fast, because I was a free target and I wouldn't be surprised if Victor's mother wanted to finish the job thoroughly. So I took what I had been learning and doing under my mother, namely learning about my environment, and decided on a course of action to kill the bitch.

My chance came about a month later, right on Camilla's birthday. At that time Garon made it a point to make small celebrations to their children if he could, which was quite morbid for us children. In hindsight, I'm sure he had all the best of intentions (even if he had this downright haunting expression during the celebrations, and those feelings decayed each year until we didn't celebrate our birthdays anymore) and truly wanted his children to have a good time on their birthdays. My 8th birthday was skipped at my insistence of not having a party, both as an excuse to not expose myself because of my recently deceased mother, because I was still ironing out the details of my stupid plan, and because I was truly grieving her as well.

One night a few days before the celebration, I slipped into the kitchen and took a single long knife and hid it in my bedroom within a chest locked by a key; a key which was passed down to me when my mother died, key that had no spares, as the chest belonged to her exclusively and was actually protected by magic, the nature of which evades me to this day (I only know that forcing it open or destroying will have some… _explosive_ results). In it were her personal effects, including her diary, some weapons I suppose she wanted to pass down to me when I came of age, and some Tomes I knew she had been working hard to obtain. As a concubine she didn't have much in the way of money; her basic necessities were covered, but she didn't have much else. There also were some papers with the Grimwood seal, which were in reality her (modest) will and various directions for contacts she trusted. My mother had truly been working hard for me.

I locked the knife away until the day of Camilla's celebration.

The plan was simple: Stab the bitch in the jugular, burn her out with my Fire Tome if she survived, discard my clothes and burn them and then dispose of the knife. How would I carry such an insane plan out? Well, it was really stupid.

I needed to bait her or leave her defenseless for the attack. Due to my small body, the second option was the safer one. Even with my body trained and hardened, I was still too small to pose a physical challenge to the woman, and to make matters worse, she actually _was_ a Dark Mage, a shitty one at that, but one that could easily kill me in a frontal assault if only due to my mediocre talent and her experience tilting the scales.

The way I went about it was even dumber. I had procured my mother's sleeping medicine and powdered it to a fine dust, which I would spike into her drink during the party, and once she was out for the night, I would kill her in her sleep.

The day of the party, I was nervous as hell. I was jittery and skirting around like a stressed cat. That day the evening classes and activities had been cancelled due to the festivities. Garon had come back from whatever business at the frontier (I didn't care about it) and was organizing a small but sizeable banquet, so our schedules had been freed in the afternoon and onwards, while the servants were hurrying all over the place, tired and overworked. I got to my own devices by preparing two sets of clothes, a thick robe (and thank fuck it was November and cold as hell, so going around with thick clothing wasn't that unusual, not that Windmire was ever warm, mind you), my recently strengthened Fire Tome, the sleep medicine I had powdered, and the knife that would be the murder weapon.

The party started at sunset. I took my first set of clothes and my robe. I hid the medicine in the pocket of my shirt, and the dagger within the robe. As for the Tome, it wasn't uncommon to see a few of us walking around with one or two below our shoulders (or with a maid walking behind us with them), mostly those who had been studying Magic for a while tended to study whenever and wherever they could so long they didn't intrude, so I didn't look that out of place, but either way, I was waiting to be reprimanded to have an excuse to retire and leave the Tome in my room. The timing to spike the drink was crucial, so I skulked around the castle kitchens after the party had already started.

The funny thing about nobility is how picky they get to be with their food and drinks. Victor's mother, being actually a bit high on the hierarchy, adored indulging in this vanity. She was of the few concubines to have cooks prepare exclusive meals to her, and I knew which ones were the ones to do so. I had spent the time planning this revenge observing her, after all.

I waited until the first courses and drinks were ready to go out, and caused a small disaster within the kitchen to distract the cooks away from the wine for just one second. My prank later got many people fired, but who cares, right? I casted a fireball towards a group of oil bottles near one of the stoves, which burned into a small but sizeable flame that distracted them, and during the chaos, I slipped the medicine into her wine. After that I scurried out of the kitchen, calmed my nerves to the best of my mediocre abilities, and joined the festivities. I tried to appear calm, and entered the dining hall with my Tome open and trying to dig a hole through the pages with my eyes, and faked walking distractedly into an empty seat, quite a few ways away from Victor and his mother.

When Garon roared what the hell was I doing in the middle of celebration, Arete calmed him down quite spectacularly, coming to my defense. I was a bit touched, honestly, and I guess looking like shit after many sleepless nights helped me in looking miserable. Nonetheless I excused myself after Garon and the concubines drilled me down with disapproving glares.

I returned to my room and quickly changed clothes into the attire I would be using to commit the deed, quietly left when I thought nobody was looking, and took watch of the room belonging to Victor's mother. Not even half an hour later, I heard steps coming, and to my chagrin, it was Victor's mother… followed by her son. I cursed all manner of profanities under my breath, as I knew I had fucked up. _Of course_ I should have expected an outcome like this, but what I didn't know back then is that it had been my fault… because I had overdosed her. The sleeping medicine had adverse effects when ingested in too large quantities, such as giving a mind-splitting headache before the sleeping effect kicks in with a vengeance, and the first half of that effect was what she was going through at that instant. The headache had made her excuse herself quite rudely from the guests, and Victor, bless his soul, had followed his mother in worry, Garon's outrage be damned.

I didn't quite catch what Victor and his mother were arguing about, I only remember Victor pleading and crying for his mother's wellbeing, and her dismissing him at every turn. The two of them entered the room in a hurry. I hesitated for a moment, but doubled down the corridor and near the door. I waited a few seconds outside, and Victor emerged soon enough, worry coloring his face from ear to nose.

We met face to face. He was quite surprised to see me, I'm sure. He quickly said that his mother was feeling sick and he needed to get a doctor or something. I calmed him down saying that she was probably just tired, so why not go and get her something to drink from the kitchens?

Victor listened to me. He _actually listened to me_ and went back. Due to his rush, he didn't notice that I tossed my robe between the frame and the door to prevent it from closing. At that moment I didn't quite realize how half-baked my plan was as I hadn't actually planned how to enter her room but, alas, the stars aligned due to Victor's unexpected appearance and made the work easier.

With Victor gone, I waited a few minutes close by the door until I could hear steady breathing and, with my heart pumping in my ears, I trespassed.

There she was. The bitch that had killed my mother, sleeping peacefully thanks to the effects of the medicine. Time seemed to stretch infinitely in those few minutes I just stood there, wordlessly watching one I had resolved to kill… and doubting myself.

And it was all due to Victor. The poor boy was just a child worried for his mother, harpy as she is. I realized at that moment that I didn't know any of my siblings. I didn't know a thing about Victor other than he was proficient in magic and apologetic to a fault, and here I was, about to murder his mother, and make him just like me: an orphan in this castle trapped within the machinations of the concubines, of a malicious court, wanting to receive the love of a father who does not look at us, and just breaking apart as people a little bit more each day.

"Is this what revenge is?" I remember whispering to myself.

And for better or worse, I got my answer.

I spent too much dallying, and Victor came back with a glass of water in hand. And he saw me, his younger brother, watching over his mother like a gargoyle, a glimmering knife in my hand.

He didn't need to ask me what I was planning to do. Before I knew we were wrestling each other on the ground, with me shoving my forearm into his mouth to prevent him from screaming, and myself wailing silently at his teeth trying to bite me off. I was used to that much pain due to the hellish punishments, but I also snapped at that moment. Victor tried to disarm me, but I was actually physically stronger than he was, and I held.

"MURDERER!"

At some point, in my desperation, I stabbed him with in the gut. Things got really violent then. He looked surprised when dark red blood started flowing from the hole made by the silver blade.

"MURDERER!"

In what I guess was his final pump of adrenaline, Victor managed to shove me off, I rolled away and crashed into the night table near the bed, where the candle was pushed down into the ground. Victor then straddled me, decidedly choking me with his lanky hands.

Soon enough the velvety room became an inferno.

"MURDERER!"

I struggled more between screams and tears. Everything had gone off the rails.

"MURDERER!"

Victor's grip eventually loosened as I reached again for the knife embedded in his gut and tore it in further. Blood splattered on my hands, my arms, my shirt, my face. I'm sure soon enough I was covered from head to toe, but I was able to overpower him eventually.

"MURDERER!"

The last thing I remember before passing out is a room lit ablaze and cradling my dead brother in my arms.


	4. Where the River Flows

**Track 4: Where the River Flows**

In my old world, I didn't have older brothers or sisters. I was an older brother, and to be perfectly honest, due to my upbringing, I was never particularly close to my siblings. In this second life that once used to be chock-full of brothers and sisters from all ages, older and younger, that seemed to hold true as well. The age gap between my original siblings and I didn't help our case either, I was too old, and they too young, and although I'll forever question "if I was a good brother", and will now be forever unable to answer them, something clicked in place when the first thing I saw after waking up from that inferno, was not the face of a nurse, or a maid, even less my father, but that of the eldest brother I had in this life, the face of one Marx Alexander du Nohr.

I'm not sure what possessed him to be the one at my side. For all I knew then, I had earned myself a one way ticket to the guillotine or worse, father's axe.

Silence reigned when I stirred awake. Xander did not say a word, and I couldn't say much either. What he did do, however, was offer me a glass of water without enunciating a word. I just followed his eyes to the nightstand beside the bed I was in (I didn't recognize the room I was in either), and with a nod, Xander poured me a glass and offered it to me with a rigid movement, his face stone cold. I could not decipher him whatsoever.

When I tried moving my left arm to reach for it, I felt a stinging pain push me completely awake, and upon inspecting my naked body, I found that I was wrapped in bandages from the neck down. My body denied me from even taking the glass myself, and as the pain subsided, if only a little due to me relenting my efforts to move, it was only then that Xander stood up from his chair, and placed the glass on my lips. The liquid was a godsend for my dry throat. I choked a little because I drank too fast, but composed myself soon enough. Xander did not say a word.

I spent the next few minutes venting, trying to gather my thoughts, and mostly failing to do so. My mind was not in the right state to be articulate or eloquent. I had no desire to play my usual mind games, and I knew there was a pretty low chance to fool Xander even then.

It was only when he spoke that I had a thread to hold onto.

"Why did you do it, Ignis?" Was his simple question.

I didn't realize I started crying the moment he finished the question.

"Because I'm an idiot," I responded, way too crudely for an 8 year old.

"Did you mean to do it?" Xander questioned me again, and again I was unable to decipher anything from either his gaze or tone.

"No." I responded.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Do I even have a choice?"

"I am the one making the questions, Ignis." Xander's tone became dangerous for the first time in the conversation. I could feel him slicing me into tiny little pieces with his eyes. "I will not repeat myself. What are you going to do now?"

"Is he dead?" I ignored him nonetheless. And that seemed to be an armor piercing question for him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Xander's expression darken.

"Yes." He responded simply, dryly; just like I did to his question.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this…" I whimpered miserably.

"How was it supposed to go, then?" Xander retorted, with bitter incredulity coating his words.

"He wasn't supposed to be there!" I cried to the lone room. "I… I didn't mean to hurt him…"

"Ignis, you killed Victor and his mother."

My blood ran cold then. At that point I hadn't known his name, I _had actively refused _to remember his name. In my mind, there were only 4 siblings that mattered, only 4 of them that should survive, _that were necessary, _and amidst the madness that I had grown in, I never once deigned any of our other brothers and sisters to anything more than obstacles and possible danger to me. I hadn't even considered that maybe Camilla, Leo, or Xander himself could be the ones to end me. I lived to survive, and when the one thing of normalcy I had in my life, that being my mother, was taken from me, I threw everything away for a stupid ploy of revenge.

A revenge that got an innocent kid killed, all due to my short-sightedness and stupid, _stupid_ wrath. Revenge that in hindsight, I didn't even have solid proof to base it. I just picked a target in Victor's mother once I saw how smug she had been when my mother was taken away. I justified it in my mind. Victor's mother's had the contacts, the means, and the perfect opportunity once my mom went on her march against Mrs. Sorel.

It was not definitive proof. But I didn't care.

I couldn't rationalize it. I had never faced a situation like this in my previous life. I had never needed to kill in my previous life, I had never had anything taken from me in such a way. Was it fear for my own life, knowing that I might die? Was it a desire to avenge my mother, rationality be damned? Was it anger for everything that's happened to me ever since I was reborn into this bizarre world? I don't know. I don't know and I don't think I want to ever know.

I wanted to lash out, but my body stopped me. It seemed like I was given the minimum attention to not die. I had a combination of burns and bruises all over my body, but I was alive.

Alive while that kid was dead… and I would never be able to fix that.

So I cried my heart out in front of my older brother.

And, for the first time ever, I had company that would let me do it until my tears ran dry.

The marks of Victor's teeth in my left forearm would be the last proof he had even existed within the Royal Family of Nohr.

* * *

I was discharged about a week later. I had spent 3 days unconscious since the fire. Xander had been unable to come see me during that time, and I hadn't received any other visits either. It was downright miraculous I had just received burns and bruises. The burns would leave scar tissue after some time (decades the doctor said), tissue that would surely accompany me as long as I inhabited the body of Ignis Perdido down to the grave, and they still hurt like hell to touch, forcing me to use a rather impractical cane as I limped a bit on my right leg and had been prescribed some painkillers (medieval medicinal opioids ahoy!), while I would have to visit the clinic daily until told otherwise.

All this was a price far too small and unjust to pay for the atrocity I committed. I had a bunch of burns across my torso, arms and back mostly. I also had a few scars on my face, although according to the doctor, it won't interfere with my daily life whatsoever once I healed enough, and dammit I wished we had Healing Staves back in my world. I guess the Dragon Blood within this body also helped. I have no margin of reference to my previous life, but between the dual color between the healthy and still healing one, I truly feel like this should have been fatal and that some of these scars should have left me charred rather than just with an irregular tan, though for all I know I could be exaggerating too.

My bad habit to wallow in self-deprecation may just become worse if this keeps up.

Not even sure getting psychological help will help me in my particular case either. At this point I have the mangled body of an 8 year old housing the mind or soul of an adult. Not sure even Freud could help me with this one. I don't want to be taken in a straitjacket either; pretty sure there'd be more than a few women delighted to see _that_ happen.

I spent the next following weeks recovering and trying to catch upon my missed classes, a process which was quite strange, as I noticed as soon as I returned to the castle that everyone from the maids to my siblings looked at me with wariness.

Rumors fly fast, after all, and it wasn't every day that one of the children, even less one turned orphan recently, pulled a stunt like mine and lived to tell the tale, taking both the mother _and_ the child in one fell swoop. I was also quite worried that being sent back in my weakened state would incite some opportunist to finish me off.

Surprisingly, no interrogations ever came. The maids avoided me like the plague now more than ever, and the children would speak in hushed voices and also avoid me even more than they did before, and I don't even want to think what the concubines said behind my back.

Physical training took a backseat until I recovered enough motor function and strength, so I instead devoted that time fully to learning magic. I wouldn't start casting Thunder anytime soon, that was obvious, but I received the most unexpected of help from Iago during that period. I don't know what he heard or thought of my return, but he was… different to me compared to before. While he still was a stuck-up snob with a few too many sticks up his ass, Iago eased up on me in the strangest of ways. Rather than berating and belittling my research, essays and circles, he started giving me cryptic but genuine advice to improve, mainly by indicating which parts in particular were wrong or doing some insane analogy that bordered on troll logic to solve my dilemmas.

The more mundane classes were no problem. I had barebones knowledge of accounting and a lifetime of math solving from my past life to help me through the number crunching, and it would be quite a while until I had to study truly loaded humanities (I dreaded the day I'd have to study Nohrian law thoroughly), so I only had to worry about my calligraphy and high nobility shtick. Thankfully I didn't have to deal with Mrs. Sorel, and though the replacement instructor wasn't much better, I wasn't deliberately picked on anymore.

Since I had quite more free time compared to my siblings, I decided to start rummaging more thoroughly through my mother's chest. I found out some interesting trinkets.

First of all was a peculiar steel sword that was too big, heavy and unwieldy for my 8 year old self. I had seen the standard issue Iron and Steel arms that were distributed to the soldiers in many of our classes up close, so when I studied my mother's sword up close, I found out the Grimwood family seal embedded on the pommel. I had no real way to tell if it was of better quality to the standard run of the mill blade of the same material, but I wanted to think it must have something going for it. Either way I wouldn't be wielding it anytime soon, so it was the one first item to be sealed again.

Next was a broken gauntlet, also too big for my current self. The fingers were damaged and bent in unnatural angles rendering them immovable, which I supposed had come from a nasty blow of some kind. The metal was also rusty as hell and dulled. After giving it a little cleaning, I found out a strange emblem engraved on the forearm that resembled the Grimwood insignia, though it wasn't quite the same as the one on the sword, as it was less fancy. It was made of a curious steel that I suspected was enchanted in some form, but since I didn't have that much knowledge yet on magical weapons or armor, I left it for another time, since it'd also need repairs.

Aside from that there were a Thunder and Fimbulvetr Tomes. Both which I wouldn't be able to use anytime soon, but would definitely serve me to get started in more advanced magic. In a bizarre mirror to the game, there were 4 standard issue Tomes distributed to the Mages in Nohr, those being Fire, Thunder, Fimbulvetr and Ragnarok, and each of those were taught in the same order due to the harshness of their handling.

Fire was the most basic tome due to its ease of use. Surprisingly, in this world willing fire to act to your will was very easy with just a bit of aptitude to magic and a Tome to supply you. The way magic works here is that the Tomes serve as a catalyst and bridge to manipulate the elements around you via their magic circles, glyphs and spells, and by memorizing the chants and imposing your own will upon the material world, you'd produce a natural effect via unnatural means. In the case of Fire, you'd warm up the air enough to combust it, using your own internal energy reserves as the fuel, so magic casting is as much of a physical as a mental task. Thunder and Fimbulvetr manipulate their appropriate elements (thunder and ice), and due to the number of chants and strength they took to cast, were considered higher tiered magic. The odd tomes like Mjöllnir and Lightning were special cases in the sense that they were both hard to produce and find, as well as manipulate in comparison to the standard issue tomes, so getting to use higher tiered Tomes boiled down to either trying yourself to use the magic and fail at it, either via not producing any significant effect, or depleting your energy. Ragnarok and beyond though, those were a bit of a special case, since no matter the strength of the caster, the "B Rank" tomes and beyond in particular tended to be quite intensive on the caster, which I guess reflected their debilitating effects. From what I heard, even Iago wasn't much of a fan of the Ragnarok Tome, preferring instead to rely on Mjöllnir, an advanced spell within the Thunder line, considered on the same tier as the basic Fimbulvetr spells, and often boasted that he'd soon have the chance to try his hand at Ginnungagap, one of the rarest Tomes within all of Nohr. Seeing firsthand what he can do with Ragnarok when he's serious, loathe it as he might, doesn't inspire much confidence in me.

Poor training dummies.

Then there was the equivalent of what is the Resistance stat from the games. In this world, every single living being will resist the effects of magic to some degree via by outright interfering with the force that makes the spell, an effect that can be further supplied with charms, wards, armor and the like, which is why Iago would never be hurt whatsoever with our spells, no matter how hard we tried. This was also a source of eternal debate within the studious, hermits and elders, I soon found out. Basically, some argued that "Resistance" as a principle is something that varies from person to person as well as object, and is something that can grow accordingly, while others claimed that it was a static force bestowed upon us by the Dragons of old, and rather than being our own, it was a blessing of sorts, that was different depending on principles like faith and a spiritual link of sorts to the world. This was explained due to the fact that "Resistance" meant squat when one was asleep, because those who believed in the second doctrine said that in a sense we left the material world when snuggled by Morpheus' sweet arms.

That was where I got the idea to burn Victor's mother down should she survive.

Fascinating as those principles may be, I don't care much about their study. Part of our magical training did include combat, combat in which we fought against each other with magic. Let me tell you those weren't pretty. Back when we first begun, we started out using the Ember spell (which is actually part of the Fire Tome's repertoire) to "_lightly"_ char each other. From those tests both our magical strength as well as Resistance were defined. Yours truly was average in both fields, of course, which got me a lot of wollen skin and minor burns.

Nothing compared to _that_, of course. There's still a difference between magical and natural fire, and actually a whole field of study pertaining the interactions between the magic users and natural phenomena.

The most important things I took from the chest were, by far and beyond, the documents with the Grimwood emblem.

Now, I'm by no means well versed in laws and politics, and as a child, I didn't know much about Nohrian law (other than the infamous "The charge for treason is WELCOME TO DIE!") either, but I have enough knowledge to understand the gist of what I was looking at.

My mother's will included a small vault of a few thousand golden coins to my name and me alone, no relationship to the crown or the Grimwood family in any way or form. It was not much in the least, and wouldn't see me through at all if I were to leave the castle, but it was nice knowing that if shit did go south completely, I'd have a minuscule buffer to survive. What surprised me the most though, was a deed for a small farm in the outskirts of Nestra. It was just a couple of hectares long, and I of course would never know its state, it could have been completely rundown and the land unusable, but it warmed me a little bit knowing that I wouldn't be left completely homeless. That deed was stamped with my mother's maiden name as well as my grandfather Perdido's signature and personal stamp. I decided that deed would never leave the chest.

The other documents were actually interesting too. Even as a minor noble house, the Grimwood family needed contacts to survive like anyone else in Nohr. I took a read at the list of names categorized in four sections: those I could fully trust, those I could trust to a degree, those that I should be wary about, and enemies I should always be on the lookout for. It was both fitting and ironic that at the top of the last section were the concubines, but something that surprised me was that Arete was not in any of those lists.

The section containing the people I could fully trust would set me off to wreck canon… to a strange degree.


	5. December

**Track 5: December**

On the last month of the year, I got to work. Garon had left Krakenburg to attend business in the frontier (again), and though all of us children were not fans of the celebrations, I had decided for myself that I'd try and start actually doing something productive for us. I was by no means assured any of us would survive much longer, and I considered the day of Arete's disappearance my deadline, one which I didn't know when would happen, which was a huge headache, so I decided to race against the clock. We wouldn't be children forever, and by making a wild claim, based on Corrin always saying he or she spent all of his or her formative years post-kidnapping in the Northern Fortress, I figured it would be soon. Anankos would not idle around, and I didn't know how he would either replace Garon with his puppet or transform him into that gooey monstrosity (I never quite understood what the hell was up with that topic), but I figured that if Arete was alive, that would buy me some time at the absolute least.

Queen Arete was never alone. She was fiercely guarded by some of the most prolific fighters I had seen yet in my life that were never mentioned in canon (then again Fates was a trainwreck in many forms and ends), those two being the Hero of the Ashen Fields (Naga, what an awesome title), Elias Zachary, and the one person I knew Iago couldn't stand nor outdo in the least, one Sorceress by the name of Natasha Black, also known as The Eternal Witch, who was during her prime considered the best mage of Nohr (and remained undefeated even after that), shoes which Iago was fervently working to fill and surpass (with mixed results). From what I had been investigating of them, they actually were close friends of Garon who had seen many battles at his side. Elias was a burly man scarred to hell and back and had humor drier than the desert, who often made the younger children cry merely by staring at them and standing still like a hulking mass of muscle, and the rooms silent when he cracked what he thought were jokes but were misinterpreted to hell and back. Natasha for her part was an eerily quiet woman, always skulking around in the shadows and keeping her single eye on us (there were a bunch of stories on how she lost her other eye, each bloodier and more bizarre than the last), she didn't speak much to us, and her smile was downright disturbing, but something about her always seemed detached and melancholic. The two of them worked as her personal guard and retainers, so it wasn't rare to see them nearby where the Queen went.

I had a bit of an issue with that, because I wasn't sure if I could trust them. To be honest, I wasn't sure what Arete thought of them either. It seemed they had a professional relationship but not much more, though it wasn't that surprising, what with Arete's precedence and all that always ticking off the people of the Court to hell and back.

Arete wasn't well beloved within the Court, and it was a fact that I wanted to play towards, which wouldn't be simple, since I was a kid and all that jazz. I definitely wanted Arete as my ally, and though it would be the single most dangerous gamble I could pull, I went through with it. I definitely could try getting to Arete through Azura, but my lack of bonding with any of the children in all my life would make this angle take too long, and time was something I did not have nor wanted to bet on.

So I pulled a ridiculous stunt. I requested a private audience with the Queen through Elias and Natasha. I wasn't sure how trustworthy they were, only that their loyalties lied with Garon first and foremost, but I had to try.

Queen Arete actually met with me. It was truly shocking, but hey, it seemed life had thrown me a bone. And I would take it. I would gamble it all.

We met during one particularly chilly morning, on the 20th of December, 5 days before Christmas, 11 days before the new year, who knows how many until her disappearance, and about a month and a half after Camilla's birthday.

Arete was a strange one, to say the least; she was usually compared to a misty lake in the middle of a clearing, which was fitting considering her Vallite origin and all their water mumbo jumbo. It was often said that those who met her directly would rarely find anything about her and instead become part of her plays and ploys, often finding self-reflecting and completely disarmed psychologically. When I met her in her private study, I knew I had walked into that infamous misty den. The Queen was a very enigmatic woman, as both her precedence and true personality remained embroiled in mystery. It was known that she was a brilliant politician and a talented mage, though in which specialization for the latter, I never knew. I'd need both of her areas of expertise.

"I must admit, Prince Ignis. I never expected your request" She said in a calculated tone after the usual pleasantries and courtesies had been exchanged. I didn't know if her condolences for my mother were genuine or just forced, and though that actually stung a little, I knew she had no reason to grieve her, nor would I ever ask something so inane.

"I never expected you to actually accept it either, Queen Arete" I replied, not letting the incredulity and sardonic tone go unnoticed. Between exhaustion, sleepless nights (I rarely slept well those days and sometimes still do), and generally being grumpy for that and more, I decided I would be as authentic as I could for once. No more tricks for this and onward. "Still really don't, to be honest, but here we are, unless I'm dreaming, and I'm sure Master Iago still had his pants on when I saw him this morning"

She actually chuckled.

"I must say this is a strange situation" Arete concedes. "I've never talked to any of you children like this. Not even Azura has sought me out as fervently as you have, young man"

Huh, curious to hear that. I actually felt the sadness on that one. I don't know if Arete and Azura were ever explicitly told to have had problems as mother and daughter in the game, but considering the shitfest that is the court, I wouldn't be surprised if their relationship was strained, what with having to keep Valla a secret and all, and that's not counting the threats to Azura's life either; she was in a position similar to Xander, after all.

Ugh, the big brother instinct in me suddenly calls to pledge for protection. Young Azura from Heroes was like a little animal that you just wanted to cuddle and protect, so if her sugar and ice personality was anything like that, perhaps I should start working towards giving her some peace of mind where I could.

Not that I had any right to.

"I see…"

"Would you like some tea?" She offered courteously.

"That'd be lovely" I answered, and she elegantly pours me a cup. I proceed to grievously fill that shit with sugar.

We spend a few minutes in silence. I know that she's using these moments to analyze me down to the core, and I let her do it. Even if I am still nervous, I'm not here with any ill intentions, and if she's a good judge of character, I want to think she'll realize so.

"Now then" She finally breaks the ice when putting down her cup. "To what business do I owe your company, Prince Ignis?"

I take a moment to gather my thoughts, because even if I'm going to be honest for once in this second life, if I blow it up I'll just have potentially doomed the remainder of my brethren, Arete herself, and most certainly Azura if this doesn't go Revelations, or might just cause a worse scenario that any of them combined.

Time to make history.

"Queen. What I'm about to say will be outrageous" I begin, and this piques her curiosity, if her eyebrow is anything to go by. Time to try and metagame this shit. "You will surely not believe me even if I try to explain, though I will try to do so if you're adamant about it, I'm sure you deserve that much. But please, _please_ believe me when I say that this entire world is set on a dangerous path that may surely lead to ruin, one that will begin with you".

I wasn't content anymore with just becoming a +1 to the Fates ride provided I even survived, not if I could help it, I would try to stop that from even being a choice. I don't care about Corrin's joke of a "choice". If he or she has the right to make a call, I am going to make mine right here and now.

Is it foolish? Quite so. Is it insane? Hell yeah. Will it work? I absolutely have no idea.

But I'm going to try anyways. I will try to protect as many of my own brothers and sisters if I can help it.

"What do you mean, young man?" Arete's gaze sharpened. She didn't lose her composure whatsoever.

"Know that I am unarmed, and please believe me when I say I don't mean harm to you" I say first of all. It was true; Elias had thoroughly searched me and didn't find any weapons on me. She nodded slowly. I took a small breath, because right now I might just get magic'd into next Tuesday.

"I know where you come from, Queen Arete. You and Azura both"

I felt the air chill around me, and saw her mask of amiability crack, but I needed to press onwards before this was seen as just a bad ruse. Arete was insightful enough to know that I was not joking though.

"I know about the invisible kingdom. The one with a name that must not be spoken"

I held my breath, and once more the silent seconds seemed to stretch to infinity. Arete's mask finally collapsed, and I was left with a gaze so piercing that it almost tore a hole through my skull.

"How?" Was her simple question. The air now froze around me abruptly, and through a form of magic I didn't know was possible, the remaining tea in the kettle rose into the air on its own, and the small bubbles of the greenish liquid solidified into dangerous icy daggers, which didn't take a second to fly right next to my neck on their own. I had known Azura and Corrin had water related abilities due to their Vallite ancestry, but seeing it up close and applied in this manner, well, it was new.

I gulped. It was the moment of truth. Do or die.

"I am not from this world either, Queen. Though I don't have any proof of it but my words and knowledge that will most likely become useless soon"

"Are you from _that_ place as well?" She almost orders me to respond.

"No. I'm from far beyond" I respond. "It will be strange to piece together, as I do not know for certain it is actually the truth, Queen Arete, but I believe my mind comes from one of the realms connected by the Dragon Gate"

The wonders of what DLC has done narratively to Awakening, Fates and Echoes. For better or worse, there was not much knowledge within the royal library about the Dragon Gate. The saving grace about it (and my crutch) is that it actually did exist as a place within this world, but other than it supposedly being a gateway to other worlds, not much of it was known.

Mostly because it was impossible to reach. All that was recorded of it were the tales of people who had supposedly reached the Gate, but all of their claims had been discarded as the words of lunatics. From what I put together, there were a lot of claims of the Gate lying in wildly different parts of the continent, while there was some form of magic blocking access to it. The most infuriating part is that at least in Krakenburg or Windmire, there was no physical proof of any of the supposed travelers. Between all that and the many myths and rumors surrounding the place there were many who didn't even believe it existed at all even.

"Is this your idea of a prank?"

…and Arete was one of those people. Fuck me sideways with a Killing Edge.

"Q-Queen Arete" I try to explain myself. "I told you myself it would be hard to believe, and that even I wasn't sure of it being the case, but believe me when I say that my knowledge is genuine"

"Child" Arete articulates coldly. "…or if you even are that" That… actually kind of hurt, ironically. "Speak plainly, or you'll die here"

"I only have my words to help me here, and knowing how that dragon has eroded to madness, do you think something as dumb as coming directly to you and trying to lay my cards on the table would be anything short of stupid!?" I plead to common sense. "Can I at least get these spikes away from me!?"

"You're either bold or stupid, child. Probably both. It wouldn't surprise me, considering your little fiery stunt" Arete chuckles maliciously. "You clearly live up to your name"

"Woman, for someone who comes from a place sealed by an in-universe spoiler repellant, you're surprisingly stubborn. And that last one was kind of a low blow" I retort without thinking.

"What madness are you blabbering about now?" She seems honestly insulted.

"I'm saying that if you keep going the way you are now, you're going to die" I take advantage of the window, running on fumes of bravado. "You will die and become a puppet to that stone faced freak, make your daughter miserable as she will have to survive this stupid shit on her own, where I and already a few more us already drew blood, mind you, and eventually all this bullshit will escalate into an all-out conflict with Hoshido due to your dear husband, my father as you may know, also becoming a puppet to that mad dragon, which by the way, will also make your cousin follow your fate as well and then _her child_ have to go on a bullshit quest with no winners on either side"

Of course the last part was a complete lie, if canon was to take place Revelations was always an option, but with me in the equation, everything goes nuts. What happens if Corn hates my guts and I prod him or her to go Birthright? Or just the other way around and it goes Conquest? Fuck if I know. I want to make more of us Nohrian siblings survive, and each of us brings more chaos to the equation. I'm definitely messing with forces I don't understand, I know it, but I'm going to fight, dammit.

I don't want a Heirs of Fate scenario either, if that's even possible. Then again I don't know if the Deeprealms are a thing here, haven't studied nor searched on them yet. Please don't be real, please.

My little rapid fire must have stunned her somewhat, because Arete goes silent for a second. She doesn't retire the knives from my sweating neck, but I feel a little relieved to see that at least some of my words have an effect.

Have I gone about this the right way? Hell if I know. I'm not sure about _anything_ I'm doing. There's no manual for this shit.

"Are you a spy for him?" Arete again jumps into a perfectly logical but infuriating conclusion.

"No" I shriek fiercely.

Wrong answer. The ice is now touching my neck. Not drawing blood yet, but well, it's quite nerve-wrecking. What a shocker.

"Then enlighten me. If you're not a spy, then what are you?" Arete presses with finality. Something tells me that if I give an unsatisfactory answer it'll be my end.

I don't know much about Arete or what her deal is. From the beginning, I've never had much of a clear picture of much of Fates as a whole package. The game was severely lacking in many aspects regarding its story, and though I know there were some side materials that never got released in the west, a lot of the time I've spent as Ignis has also been very limited in information. Heck, even in-game we get to hear very little about Arete and Mikoto. For a long time now I've been treading in unknown waters, and my actions just may make what little knowledge I _do_ have completely worthless.

But I can't bear to stand still, because I'm…

"Just an idiot with innocent blood in his hands trying to prevent more tragedies" I respond. "Because I want to try and give a chance to my brothers and sisters, because I believe that I can do some good even with the shit hand I was dealt"

Because I owe it to Victor.

Arete stands still for a moment, and I notice her extended hand, the one I assumed she used to control the icicles, tremble. She looks at me with incredulity. I guess the uncanny valley of the words being used by an 8 year old must have been a hell of a ride. I can visibly tell that she's debating what to do with me, but I can already feel the ice daggers relent if only a little bit.

"…Where I come from" The Queen of Nohr says slowly. "Where I come from we have a fable. It tells of a thirsty villager who is unable to find a river amidst a dense forest he was traveling through to reach his village, he had been walking for many days now, and though he was near his destination, he was still very thirsty. A curious spider sees him and approaches him, and after the villager tells the spider about his situation, the spider tells that though there is no river, he can drink from the gathered rain on the leaves of the trees, and tells him of a particular tree within the heart of the forest with leaves are big enough to gather enough even for a human like him. The villager, however, is too wary of the spider, and though he appreciates the advice, he prefers continuing his way, making do with the smaller leaves that he comes across. He eventually finds his village out of the other edge of the forest, and the spider, though sad, decides to spin its web back to its home.

Later during the season, the village's rivers and wells started running dry, and would face a drought soon. The man who traveled through the dense forest then tells the other villagers about a big tree that gathered a lot of rain in its leaves. The village then thinks that if it gathers enough water for a person to drink from, it could surely help them all at least survive the season should worse come to worst, and so the chief makes the villager take him to the forest to search for that tree.

The villager then admits that though he knew about the tree, he didn't actually know where it was, and instead seeks out the spider to help them. They wandered through the forest all day but didn't find the spider, so discouraged, the chief returned to his village. The villager however didn't relent, and kept searching well into the night. He managed to trace back his steps to where he had first met the spider, but no matter how much he called for the it, the spider had long since abandoned that part of the forest. The villagers never found the fabled tree which would let them quench their thirst from its large leaves, and were forced to move to farther lands to survive the drought"

The fable ended on quite a strange note. During this whole exchange, the Queen had spoken in a strangely melancholic tone. She then redirects her attention to me once more.

"I myself never quite liked this fable, if I do say so myself, but it is part of our dying folklore" Arete continues. "And though the message is simple, I find myself compelled to ask. Is the water you're offering real, or just a ploy?"

"You're more worried about the fact that if the time of need comes, you will not find the spider, aren't you?" I question back sharply, letting the veiled insult of calling me a spider go through. "You know a drought is coming, but don't know if it'll be too late later, or if my help will even be enough then"

Truly a bizarre fable.

"If you truly know where we come from, then you know that I cannot trust anybody lightly" Arete continues. "And just the promise of some water will not be enough to quench a whole kingdom"

"I'm asking you to trust me" I say, trying to muster as much confidence as I could. "I also want that dragon gone by all means, that mad lizard speaks disaster to all of Nohr and Hoshido, not only your kingdom, though I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. He's planning. He's _always_ planning, never resting, never stopped, and believe me when I say not even Azura's song will be enough"

"Who in the name of the Dusk Dragon are you truly, Prince Ignis?" Arete questions tiredly, and for once her mask, peerless in confidence and regal willpower, falls down, revealing a woman who's very tired. Tired of running, of keeping appearances, of fighting a fight some part of her believes to be futile.

"An idiot who's had enough of running away" I answer.

There are Fates worse than death.

"And just how do you plan on going on about it?" Arete questions sardonically, perhaps the most honest I have ever seen her. The sass fits her like a glove. "I do not believe you truly understand the situation you're getting yourself in"

"Honestly? You're right" I respond sincerely. Her jaw falls down. "I'm just a dumb 8 year old with no know-how or manpower to get his dumb plans going"

Arete's eyes then glint mischievously, and then she gives a positively evil grin. Dusk Dragon, woman! Flora is best girl! Bad thoughts! She's your step-mother! You're friggin' 8 years old in body for crying out loud!

"I see…" The Queen of Nohr is just a step away from breaking into maniacal laughter befit of an evil overlord. I wonder if it's because the idea of conspiring with an 8 year old is that outrageous. Nah, it can't be, surely. "I guess someone should look over your decisively childish plans and give them a little refinement, wouldn't you say?"

Please don't tell me I also have that evil look in my eye as well.

"I have a few ideas…"

A certain traveling redhead merchant is about to get into a load of trouble. And it's gonna be positively excellent.


	6. Crystal Bullets and Silver Crosses

**Track 6: Crystal Bullets and Silver Crosses**

Fixing a country is not something that's done in a single night, let alone a few years. Healing a nation with such deeply ingrained war-mongering tendencies and as damaged as Nohr, not to mention stupidly prideful would be a gargantuan task. Honestly I didn't even have faith it was something that would be fixed in a generation or two, but if nothing was ventured, there would be no gains. One of the main reasons things went to shit in canon, from what I pieced together with a combination of common sense, my education and what Arete told me, is that Hoshido actively refused to trade with Nohr for reasons never explained in-game coupled with a complicated economic situation within Nohr. Reasons I would actively find and play to accordingly.

However, I was not convinced that the stupidly prideful members of the court would settle for the terms Hoshido would lay firsthand, and even then it was perfectly possible that their initial offerings were also less than ideal in an effort to spite us, provided we even got talks going in the first place. To start with I needed to get communications going between nations, and for that task I needed a major involvement from Arete, task that wasn't easy on its own because of her own limited contacts. Of course Arete had been trying for all of her life as a Queen, however, the more we talked together, the more I realized that even if she had such a position, she still had her hands tied in a lot of matters unless Garon himself gave his approval in person. Of course the assholes were yes men that sang praises and cowardly placated him in his presence, but would actively seek to sabotage Arete's efforts the instant Garon's back was turned in an effort to defame her.

There was also the fact that even if the communications got going, Sumeragi himself wouldn't approve for Hoshido's end. Our initial idea was to keep the mediation through Mikoto and Arete, but it was soon made evident that we needed a lot of failsafes in case shit started going awry on the other end, which, knowing my luck, was mandatory. We both didn't know much of Sumeragi's character outside of how he also had his Hoshidan pride to hold onto.

Ugh, I fucking hate pride.

We started making an effort on that end by sending a few members that at least listened to Queen Arete rather than outright antagonizing her. I knew we couldn't plead to their morals; their loyalties lied to Garon and his archaic prideful ways, so we had to be craftier than that if we wanted a better front.

So if they wouldn't comply, we would play dirty in return. We started gathering dirt on every single member of the Court, and we knew it would be the easiest to start on the Treasury. Numbers are the most volatile asset within any company if not supervised zealously, and thankfully for us, medieval accounting had heaps and leaps to get onto the times. We started _sneakily_ gathering their records and bills and looking through their numbers. Of course there was a lot of foul play involved, politicians never change across the eras, and amidst stolen resources and shaky incongruences in the balances, we started taking note of who had the biggest skeletons in their closets.

We wouldn't shake them open quite yet, we would need to play it smart.

We also uh… _adjusted_ some records a bit where we could in order to hit them harder.

Hey, all's fair in love and war. Besides, I soon found out Arete actually had a bit of a vengeful streak, so she was eager to assist me. There were quite a few people she wished to get back on. Yikes.

And let me tell you that crunching through our national accounts with a fucking wooden abacus is something I don't want to repeat ever again. Excel, I miss you something fierce. Yeah, we actually both sat down multiple nights and did the grunt work. Shocking, eh? I in particular got a boatload of work. Arete would bite the bullet and help me do so via making me publicly start some parts of my education earlier. It would cause a lot of stir among the concubines and the court, but I decided I'd take the risk. One of the bastard children of Garon suddenly trying to match the crown prince? Unheard of.

I must say that having reacquired my addiction to caffeine at such a young age is not something I'm quite proud of. I missed you, my dark mistress, even if I know you only wish to drown me in your inky depths of no return.

Anyways, while we were working around starting causing discord within the Royal Court (process which was kickstarted once I started pestering the accountants and treasurers), I got help from Arete to involve a certain someone I hadn't expected to find within the list my mother left behind. In it she said one of the people I could fully trust was none other than the wandering merchant Anna. Friggin' RNGoddess Anna was actually a thing in this setting, even if she was DLC in the game, which further got my hopes up of the Dragon Gate actually being real. The problem was that it would be a challenge to actually contact her, being a wandering merchant and all, but we still would search her. Arete was skeptical of her by all means, but I was fervent on getting her on ship. If there's someone that can make a fortune out of a fucking dirt jar, it's her. And if she's been wandering for any significant time, there's no one better to tell us about what really goes on in the market and help us revitalize it.

Perhaps she'll break open our vaults and leave us broke, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. Arete's not so sure though, understandably.

I'll pray to Anna, just like I did every time I went into a Lunatic map.

Which uh… in hindsight, isn't actually all that assuring. Never actually completed any Lunatic routes whatsoever in Fates nor any other Fire Emblem… and I don't think Abyssal maps from Heroes count?

EITHER WAY, we don't lose anything by trying. And if we can pique Anna's greed enough, which should be easy, considering we're royalty and all, we can get one very strong ally.

The reasoning we came up with to be very aggressive in our approach was that we needed to actually _destabilize_ Nohr to discourage war, but do it in a specific way. In my words, I want to actually make the so promised internal revolution that Conquest's slogan lied upon (One filthy lie I'll never forgive) a truth, but I just couldn't go up in arms, kill Garon and call it a day, of course not. Even if I'm completely bookdumb when it comes to history and politics, I understand that a nation's problems are often a web of interconnected links that affect each other and often resonate in the most insane and unexpected ways.

For example, let's just say I kill the whole fucking court, because fuck those guys, they're downright impossible to work with. Who takes their places? Who're even qualified to assume their functions? Do they even _know_ what they should be doing? What about their allies? From my experience in my past life as a corporate slave, when I was fresh out of college and landed my first job, I didn't have a fucking clue of where to start with and my boss was a complete asshole, so I needed to invest myself into my position and make a slow crawl from there. I was never able to do much and left the job soon enough because fuck that guy, but, and here's a big but, _the asshole actually knew what he was doing_. I could've never done his job myself, fuck no, it was a lot of responsibility as it was, so trying to take upon his job or suddenly delegating a task to some random schmuck is stupid. Arete actually agreed with me on a lot of points, which makes sense being that she actually was royalty and trained to do this kind of job, both in Valla and Nohr.

But here's another teeny tiny little detail: There's only so much work one single person can do. We're no kryptonians or demigods with endless stamina, in my case even worse since I was still a child in body.

That's why delegation exists and why multiple people work together. The problem with the Royal Court is that by all means it was stagnant as hell. Too many older people still resided in those seats, some from even before Garon took the throne (fucking artifacts, sweet Naga! Some of those decrepit vampires were straight out of a fucking Hitchcock nightmare on steroids) and deeply rooted in their racism and pro-war beliefs, and their friggin' mafia of contacts extended way too deep. We'd need to pluck them by the roots, but we just couldn't take the whole stem from the beginning.

So rather, I proposed two ideas that would need at least some time to produce their full fruits, though for now I did expect to cause some upheaval in the following months and years. The first one was to start aggressively doing R&D on our agricultural practices. While I had no extensive knowledge about it, I was thankfully able to introduce the Queen to the ideas of organic fertilizers, crop rotation, and perhaps the one that interested her most, chinampas. The first two were not known whatsoever, which was a huge relief for me because they allowed me to explore the idea of making at least some areas more profitable provided they got going, I didn't expect them to solve all of our crop problems, but if it proved feasible, it'd help our food problems somewhat and spread good rep for the Queen (who obviously was at the forefront of these campaigns). Chinampas I wasn't too hot on, but considering how a lot of Nohrian territory was covered in bogs and swamps, I thought that maybe it could be worthwhile to try, and the Queen actually thought it could work. For those who don't know, chinampas were a method the Aztecs used to farm. In a nutshell, they were boats made out of dirt and clay that would be filled with crops that required high amounts of water. The main enemy we faced, however, was still the lack of sun, so Arete was trying to get our territories nearest to the Bottomless Canyon that weren't engulfed in eternal thunderstorms to start experimenting, as those areas had more sunlight to work with, not much of course, but it was better than nothing.

The other idea, and the shakiest one, was to start also investing in our law and magic schools as well as select knight academies by offering scholarships like those from my original world. In a nutshell, the Nohrian royal family would actually sponsor a few select kids (the process of handpicking we still were arguing about, as both of us weren't exactly able to cover much ground in that way) and help them get through schools and be offered a position within the Royal Family we wanted them to fill and could actually create so long they didn't break the status quo too much, and then we'd keep them by all means on a leash by making them pay back the money we spent on them.

The concept was novel to the Queen, but she actually liked it a lot. Scary woman.

She liked the idea because that way we could start pushing out people we didn't want in key parts of the Court and even let the concept filter to specific deputies and lands that could be useful to us, to slowly start integrating people indebted to her the Queen.

However, and a BIG however here, is that this scholarship program thing would never be approved by Garon. An operation of that scale would need massive funding, funding we were both sure Garon would prefer spending on the army and weapons, and it was as infuriating as you could imagine.

That was one problem; my personal one with the tuition idea is that it was, to put it bluntly, _too slow_. I needed to get the Royal Court doing what Arete and I needed pronto, and though the tuition could work on the long run, it could very well backfire since it would be such a slow burn. For now we had decided to at least extend the invitation to more army/combat-oriented minor noble families that would readily accept getting their sons and daughters to work for the Royal Family. I chuckled when I found out a certain loyal knight with a penchant for playing therapist in the original game would be coming to be working under us maybe about a year from now on provided everything went smoothly. Sorry, Corn, but I really need someone like Silas with me. His family may not be powerful, but he's the type that will earnestly work and reflect his station with dignity, and will give back everything with returns.

I'm not going to make him my retainer or anything like that though, or at least I don't think I need to do that. I actually already have in mind who I'll be getting to work directly with me when the time comes. We start getting personal retainers when we reach 14 years old, with Xander being an exception due to crown prince status, as he already has his pair.

A pair that if canon is to follow, will not serve him for long; they're not Laslow and Peri, that's for sure.

I still have no fucking clue how Peri ended being a retainer in canon, actually. But I'll worry about my elder brother's choices in women when I can break it down to him without being tried for the weirdest case of fraternal harassment in the history of ever. Not sure telling my 11 year old brother as an 8 year old that he shouldn't be sticking his dick in a crazy he still hasn't met is sensible.

…Could I prevent that somehow? Food for thought.

Anyways, with all that said, some of the contacts that my mother left provided interesting for Arete. Most of them were not mentioned in canon whatsoever (what a shocker), but apparently, there were a few people already within the Court (in relatively low places within the hierarchy) who Arete had been keeping an eye on ever since before. I left that to her judgement, but she told me she'd start stirring the sharks on her own with those names in mind.

It was actually kind of heartwarming. In a bizarre way, I felt like my mother and Queen Arete were hitting it off.

Uh… don't know what's in store for those guys in particular though, so I'll apologize to them in advance.

There's still a lot to work on.

* * *

Aside from our megalomaniacal scheming and emptied barrels of coffee, Arete also entertained me with her knowledge.

I had shared with Arete what I knew from the game in general terms regarding to what happens around Azura. She now knew that at some point, she would disappear and it would set Azura's path in stone; we still didn't know the finer details, but as I insisted that she would become an aqueous puppet to the Silent Dragon, it didn't bode well regarding Vallite invaders.

Arete revealed to me what she knew about Vallite magic in return. As I had suspected with Corrin and Azura, Vallite magic focused a lot on manipulating water. Arete herself was capable of altering the temperature of any given liquid provided it had some measure of water in it, with less water making this control harder to perform, as well as control its movements, which is how she had willed the tea of that time to freeze and push the resulting needles to my throat without ever touching the tea herself. As I understood it, this was due to their particular strain of Dragon Blood in them, particularly it being of Anankos himself. Then there was also the matter of the infamous song.

The song functioned just like it did in canon. It was composed by Anankos himself and required the pendant made from his own body to take effect. When someone with his Dragon Blood used both in conjunction, it would weaken him tremendously. I questioned Arete regarding it damaging the singer, and she revealed something that was brilliant in hindsight.

When the song was used outside of Valla, it was then that it would cause death to the singer, as apparently, the magic used to empower it, coming from Anankos himself, called also upon very the power of Valla in return, the land he had blessed. Singing it outside of Valla was basically forcing the cursed magic of that place upon the user, which to put it in another way, would be like slowly and indirectly triggering the curse that would make one disappear should they speak the trigger words outside Vallite borders. It explained why Azura would disappear in a Birthright or Conquest scenario: she used the song in this world, while she was safe from its effects in a Revelations scenario, as she'd then use it within Valla.

It's infuriatingly brilliant.

Azura for her part didn't have much talent for Vallite magic, from what Arete told me. Vallite magic was unlike common magic in the sense that it was locked to their bloodline and functioned under different rules, being draconic and all. It seems actual draconic magic is a big deal in this world, which is why us Royals being able to tap into the Dragon Veins and having basically been blessed by the physical gods puts us above the normal populace.

What a load of bullcrap.

There also were a few more miscellaneous but very important things to have in count regarding it. Turns out, the aqueous soldiers, and those of the Vallite Royal Family, can actually use friggin' water warping, as in using water as a means of travel. She told me it's one of the single most exhausting abilities they have, leaving it unsuitable for combat, but it was how Anankos mobilized his armies. For the living, it was a magic incredibly difficult to use, that even she herself was not able to use it leisurely, but the undead of course didn't have this limitation, which is what made the invisible soldiers so dangerous. The _two_ saving graces and limitations regarding this bullshit ability were the fact that the body of water must be able to house the warped objects or persons in volume, so it's safe to assume one cannot send a soldier through a glass of water, and that the bodies of water must be interconnected for it to work, which also explained why in the last chapters of Revelations and certain paralogues like Siegbert's cutting out the water would stop the reinforcements.

Arete could also use what essentially boiled down to "Water Heal", as in using water to heal wounds. That was damn useful, since it didn't actually require staves. Too bad it was also limited in application, being that it didn't restore lost blood or organs or anything major compared to what a staff could, though it still had the convenience on not requiring any outside equipment.

I wouldn't be waterbending anytime soon, sadly.

Our discussions eventually brought a particular topic in mind: Corrin. Arete had explained to me that while the song would give us a fighting chance, it would mean squat if we couldn't actually kill Anankos, a thing that was only possible through the Fire Emblem, as foretold by the Rainbow Sage. In this world, the Yato was the Fire Emblem, but it needed the other 4 sacred weapons to obtain its true form, a detail which Arete actually didn't know, and brought us to a crux: In order to ensure Azura would live and Anankos die, we basically needed a Revelations scenario, or to bring both Dawn and Dusk families together. If Corrin was bound to the Yato in some bullshit destined shtick, we would need her to push that way too.

Yeah, turns out that this world's Corn is a girl. Eat your heart out, Professor Oak.

And that topic again brought us to yet another very important detail regarding the in-game timeline: Garon's touching of rockbottom and Corrin's kidnapping. Arete still wasn't convinced on why exactly only 3 paths existed based on that, and honestly, I just didn't have the metaphysical knowledge to delve into quantum physics to explain that. In the end I decided to break it down through as the possibilities _I _knew were possible.

Which sad to say, didn't inspire much confidence in the Queen. She understandably questioned me about everything I said, and the only thing I kept technically lying about was that I was from beyond the Dragon Gate. I had explained to her that in my original world, this whole business was just a story with three different versions to its ending and I attributed what I didn't know to either not remembering the story clearly or said details not being within the story; not worth going through the whole "YOU'RE A VIDEOGAME CHARACTER, STEP-MOM!" fiasco. It's already complicated as it is. It certainly wasn't the ideal scenario, but I want to think I grew close to Arete in the months we spent talking and planning, and that my strange knowledge and way of seeing the world, completely unbefit of both a Nohrian and even less a child allowed me to come across as genuine to a degree.

…One of the thoughts that kept me awake at night was if I was dooming this world to failure merely by existing. I had managed to make Arete promise she'd live to see the endgame, and to keep an eye on Garon, all in an effort to save as many lives as possible, but I was often paralyzed by thoughts of all this being a fruitless endeavor.

I explained to Arete that even if we pushed to an ideal Revelations-esque scenario, I wouldn't forsake my brothers and sisters, and I plead to her to do the same for herself.

And she disarmed me completely when she asked me if I included Azura in that assertion. Up until that point I still hadn't started getting particularly close to any of my siblings, with the concubine wars still going full force in the background. Azura was of course collateral damage in all of this, if not an outright target.

So, she made me promise that from here on, and even if all of our plans failed, that I would protect Azura. That question wasn't one of the Queen of Nohr or someone who wanted to protect the world, no. She had just asked me as a mother worried for her child.

I learned that day that Arete, virtuous as she might be, would always hold Azura above everybody else in this world, above Anankos, above Garon, above Mikoto, and me and the bastard children of course.

She was just a mother who wanted to protect her beloved child, and wouldn't stop at anything to see it through.

With a heavy heart, I accepted her request. I knew for certain it would be no easy task, but I think I owed Arete that much. Azura was bullied and ostracized, and I didn't ever know how close she had been to any of the siblings. I think I recall her being close to at least Camilla, and maybe Xander to a degree, while Elise never knew about her. But even then, remembering the somber lady she grew up to be in game, I couldn't say no to her. I owed it to Arete at the least.

On the 3rd of March, right on the eve of Azura's 7th birthday, I promised her mother I'd become her big brother and guardian. That day I also plead for Arete to fight for a future alongside her daughter rather than just try to open the way for her.

I didn't believe her smile when she told me she would.


	7. Snow Globes, Toy Boxes, Cracked Marbles

**A/N: Glad to see this getting some follows and favorites!**

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**Track 7: Snow Globes, Toy Boxes, Cracked Marbles**

I sometimes hate myself for being right.

During July, Xander's retainers died in the line of duty protecting him from a disturbingly organized rebel attack the very first day he personally visited Blackfrost Academy in the duchy of Armos, a small city I hadn't ever seen or heard mentioned in game. It was one of his first preemptive moves he'd been planning on doing for a while before ascending to the throne. As I understood it, it was an operation with multiple objectives in mind; firstly, it was for Xander himself to visit one of the most important soldier academies in the country and observe the caliber of upcoming knights and current teachers (Xander thoroughly wiped the ranks of his age from what I heard and gave a good run for their money to promising seniors, and that he was surprisingly humble about it); another objective was to boost morale: Royals visiting the national institutions was not that strange, and apparently it helped bring closer the army to the Royal Family, which fit well considering how Nohrian customs exalt martial might, the last and most important objective was diplomatic business with the director of Blackfrost and the Duke of Armos regarding their neighbors, the Ice Tribe.

During his travel back, Xander was ambushed, and his escort killed, including his retainers. Garon demanded Ice Tribe blood, but from what I was told, it was unclear who had actually been the perpetrators. Evidence flew right and left, both genuine and fake, and though I didn't involve myself in the case, tensions started running high then. I consulted Queen Arete about it, but she was not sure who to believe either.

From what she told me, while the people from the Ice Tribe flourished like few could within the icy edges of their home, Glacies, they were the reserved kind and didn't interact much with Armos outside of their trade agreements, as it was one of the very few territories adjacent to them in the first place, as that territory was, well, _pretty fuckin' cold_. Their relationship was pretty symbiotic because the Ice Tribe has apparently very potent powers to control the weather, and if Flora from canon is anything to go by, I'm not surprised. I don't know which lunatic decided to build an Academy in the middle of literally frozen nowhere, but the Nohrians and the Ice Tribe had a long time relationship. The graduates from Blackfrost were some of the best in the whole country, and from what I had been looking at their downright inhumane training regimes, it kind of made sense. Apparently, getting sent to Blackfrost was the equivalent of joining the military for the military of the military. The admissions were all open, but absolutely very few even make it through. It was the most bizarre and extreme example of the Nohrian ideology I had ever seen.

Side notes: Apparently most of the people that have made it to the very few Dark Fliers we have in the whole country come from Blackfrost, and Natasha Black is related to the Duke of Armos. Go figure.

And yeah, Dark Fliers are a thing as well, but they are actually _so friggin' elite_ they don't reach the double digits in numbers, both because the particular breed of falicorns that they ride are one of the rarest species in the whole _continent_ and only mate in very specific conditions within an even more specific territory between Armos and Glacies, and also are tough as hell to tame compared to their relatively tenderer, fairer ones that thrive in Hoshido. Their rising is one hell of a job maintained in joint by the Ice Tribe and Armos. I don't know what their actual combat potential is, but if the king does keep the Dark Flier program around with how absurd it is to fund, I guess they must be one hell of a force to be reckoned with.

…Awakening Galeforce!?

Sorry, back to the important stuff.

There's a bunch of reasons the Ice Tribe and Nohr remain on relatively friendly terms. Those terms are, according to the Treaty of Nohr-Glacies signed by King Siegbert Dracul du Nohr II, Chief Janus of the Berserker Hail and Archduke Grant Phospor Black (in a nutshell, because nagadamn that's a long list of terms. I understand that clarity is needed in deals like these, but I'm also a believer of there being beauty in brevity), that Nohr and the Ice Tribe are to remain on a mutually beneficial relationship and agree to provide support should one or the other be invaded by an external force (which external force, anyway!? Glacies is balls deep within Nohrian territory! This is only beneficial to Nohr!), as well as keeping their territories open for trade, with special clauses for Blackfrost Academy, allowing people from both Nohr and the Ice Tribe to enlist there, and the Ice Tribe from keeping the place from being buried in the snow completely so long the terms are respected.

Basically, the Ice Tribe keeps Blackfrost alive from the worst ice storms to keep pumping out elite soldiers for Nohr, while Nohr allows trade to reach them because of course the deep freeze is hard to live in and both just keep out of each other's ways. I'm assuming Blackfrost is more of a prison anyway, with how horrible it sounds.

…I've also heard some disturbing rumors from the maids in passing. Apparently, it actually _was_ a prison and execution place way back, and it was where both the Ice Tribe and Nohr took their worst criminals and offed them. Nowadays though, the most important prison in Nohr is the Styx, located on the far Northern Farlands… quite close to the Northern Fortress, actually.

What business Xander had with the current Duke and Director, hell if I know, Xander of course won't privy me to the details and I didn't want to burden him with remembering anything regarding that either. What I do know is that recently things have been getting strained, because Armos is raising the trade taxes through the roof, and Chief Kilma is understandably unhappy about it.

But for it to escalate into a murder attempt for the crown prince? Arete and I both call bullshit. Arete has actually interacted with Kilma before, and from what she's told me, he's a reasonable and chill man (my words, not hers, pun completely intended), and I'm inclined to agree with her. Murdering Xander would only cause further unrest within the relationships of Glacies and the rest of Nohr. It doesn't benefit anyone.

So the investigations are ongoing. What Arete has managed to share with me, is that there were _far too many casualties for the size of the operation_. Apparently the task force was too small compared to the 15+ men Xander had with him. _Xander had a full fucking convoy with him, for fuck's sake!_ Some from the Nohrian side say that Kilma's been hiding some sort of elite force for a while now, while the annoyingly vocal extremists from the Ice Tribe's side claims that the guards were too incompetent.

The bet Arete and I have? Vallites. Fucking Vallites.

There were no survivors from either side other than Xander, who was taken to the Duke's mansion in his retainer's dying breath and died in his arms. It's a dire situation, to be perfectly honest. Kilma of course doesn't recognize the attackers as people of his tribe, he insists that they are impostors posing as them, and the deliberation is nuts, while the Nohrians prosecuting them keep building a case with both truths and falsehoods.

I'm worried that this'll be the cause of Flora and Felicia being taken from their home…

Either way, we are actually preparing for the funeral of Xander's retainers and soldiers who had been accompanying him. They will be buried with medals of honor and a war heroes' ceremony.

I've been silently hovering about him for this time. I'm not sure it amounts to much or if it means anything to him, but I've been trying to take on the role of brother recently, not only to Azura, but also to our brothers and sisters.

In particular, I've grown close to the most recently made orphan, a blond boy by the name of Bismarck who's treading just behind Camilla in a few months, being that he's 7 as well, older than Leo by just a hair breadth. Bismarck is actually a very well-behaved, proper and obedient boy with quite effeminate features if I do say so myself, and a respectable height that easily makes him stand out within his age group (if he keeps growing like he has I'm not certain I'll be taller than him for long), so he's quite the _bishie_. He's well-liked by our instructors and shows promise in swords and bows.

His mother died by poisoning; apparently, she committed suicide via arsenic. Bismarck's mother had been growing increasingly aggressive and violent towards him, berating him for the dumbest of bullshit not even Mrs. Sorel had ever done right in front of us. In more than one occasion, Bismarck's mother had stormed in the middle of class and taken him out no questions asked. He wouldn't return for the day, and when he did, he did so covered in bruises and injuries in his neck and wrists at the very least, which he tried to hide with long sleeves.

I'm not sure about it, but I want to think his mother was slowly becoming insane or at least had a mental illness of some sort.

Another one bites the dust…

Bismarck still doesn't talk much to me, but I've been slowly getting him to open up. From what I heard amidst the maid's gossip, he sometimes spaces out _hard_ in the middle of classes, stopping taking notes completely, and sometimes he starts breathing erratically, requiring someone to fetch him out of class. I've been helping him out by passing him down my notes and just trying to be amicable… with um… mixed results.

The best results I've had with him so far often need to make him focus in a given task. I've been brushing up on my riddles and simple card games like pair-matching. He rarely deigns a nod when we do play, but I want to think it works at least to a degree. So far he hasn't had panic attacks when we've been playing other than when I fucked up with the "If Teresa's daughter is my daughter's mother, what am I to Teresa?" riddle. In hindsight I should have been aware with a riddle like that of all kinds, but I had thought he would be able to do it.

Of course not, dumbass. Bismarck had one of his worst panic attacks yet, which required the nurse to actually drug him into sleep.

What the fuck am I supposed to do?

For now I've been keeping a little bit of distance between us. I've been making sure he knows I'm around, though I'm not sure he knows I don't want to hurt him. The last thing I did was gift him the deck of cards I had bought for us to play memory match. I hope he comes to me one day, but until then, I'll try to hover.

As for Azura? Poor girl is somber as hell, holy shit. I don't think I've ever met a kid as pessimist as her, and that's coming from me, an adult stuck in a child's body. What I had seen from her kid self in Heroes? It doesn't remotely compare. Arete had more or less made me remain physically by her side as much as I could and just… try to live our lives as brother and sister, I guess? She doesn't talk much, and when she does, she usually questions things in a way that feels you've fucked up somewhere in your life choices and should reevaluate if you're even worth to be alive. I remember in particular a conversation that went like this:

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Cleaning up my magic circles" I responded. I had been doing some refinement on my Fire circles to optimize my casting just a tad bit more. I still had problems with some runes, so redoing circles every now and then helped me both practice the basics I usually skipped and the runework. Lemme tell you that skipping your basics in spellcasting can and will result in your spell blowing up on your face if you fuck up hard enough.

Fucking. Hell.

"Why?"

"Because Master Iago asked so" I responded as a half-truth. I didn't quite know if she would be bored by me explaining the whole shtick, so I preferred going for a blunter, more straightforward answer. Though to be fair, I _was_ having a crappy day then, and didn't want to take much more bullcrap then. "It's my homework"

"Why bother?" She said, eyeing the drawing disinterestedly.

"There's always room for improvement" I responded as cheerily as I could.

"Improve? If you fail, it'll be for nothing anyways"

I remember my hand slipping, splashing the ink bottle across the parchment, fucking up the whole circle. I hadn't expected such a cynic response.

"See? Now it's useless" She said somberly, and resumed reading her picture book.

And holy fuck did it _sting_. I _had_ been working on that circle for about 3 hours (doing circumferences only by pulse is a superhuman skill, lemme tell you! No! It's not the salt speaking!), and suddenly due to a slip up, all that work had been lost.

And no one ate dinner that night…

Anyways, Azura's somberness was something Arete had fervently asked me to help fix. Azura was a very damaged child, like all of us, only that she was a bit more mature than her peers. However, that maturity was not without its drawbacks, even less when it had come from a place as shitty as Krakenburg. Arete had told me that Azura was a very bright kid before Nohr, and that she despised the sadness that now permeated her songs. Azura rarely sang nowadays, and when she did…

**_God. Damn._**

I've always been a sucker for music, even if I'm not well educated on it. I want to think I have a good ear (untrained of course) and the basest of notions of the basics.

And the few times, each time, every single occasion I heard Azura sing I felt my heart splitting in half. No child should be able to convey such emotion with such a voice. I'm not versed enough to understand the full depths of her talent or even try to remotely follow her artistic talents, but I despised Azura's singing because of how beautifully broken it was. She should be singing happy songs, nursery rhymes, she should be singing about the joys of life, not wondering of what lies at the end, or of our purpose as people, or about the meaning of truth, despair and hope. She shouldn't be singing for bygone days, but for the future.

So I did something I wasn't sure would bode well (for my already questionable mental health), but I crunched music lessons in my already tight schedule. I _had_ played the guitar and the drums in my previous life, heck, I still remembered a couple of songs in the guitar, and not having my original music was one of the things I missed the most. So I'd try to teach by example, or at least relate to Azura in music, the one thing she took the most solace on.

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but I would try reach out to her nonetheless.

Switching gears from Azura, Leo had finally started showing impressive progress in his magical studies, but at this point in time, he had had a development I hadn't foreseen, which for once was directly linked to me.

Whereas in the original game he always had the shadow of Xander to catch on, in this reality I was a more immediate goal for Leo to catch on, one he was already surpassing, and due to the divide between us three being different, as Leo and I both were bastard children and Xander the Crown Prince, Leo had genuinely started getting close to me, at the behest of his mother. Our stations were similar, and Leo, bless his little soul, was more sensitive than he let on. Leo had seen that Arete and I were close in a way he wished he were with his mother.

It had been quite a thing to get used to. Not even Xander sought out Arete remotely near to what I did, so that got me a lot of bad reputation among the concubines, who said I was sinking my cursed, brother murdering fangs in the Queen's neck.

Hilarious.

Arete and I were fellow conspirators first and something remotely simulating family second; we were united by a common cause, and we worked fervently to further our agendas. I will readily admit I had grown to have a form of affection for the Queen, but for me she was more of an aunt or even a godmother. The memories of both of my mothers, the one from the previous world and this one, left me unable to do more. Our relationship to the public was just of a rather unorthodox Queen, but we both worked hard to keep it under a mask of me being a grunt trying to climb the social ladder. Arete had always said that as I grew older, I should stop giving the appearance of being a child seeking to replace his mother and act more like a Prince of Nohr.

The rational part of me and even my conscious part agreed with that completely, but a little part of me deep within stung.

Anyways, if things kept up like they were, Leo would grow up to be someone very different to canon. I tried to play my role as a big brother, but it was hard to stay ahead when Leo was such a bright kid. His potential for magic had surfaced much earlier this time around because he didn't pursue the sword like Xander as fervently as his canon self did. I want to attribute this due to the fact that I was a very different kind of brother compared to any child in the Royal Family. Rather than try to work my ass off to try and catch up to Xander to claim the crown, my objectives lied somewhere completely different, and I focused my efforts accordingly, and ever since that incident with Victor, I was willing to try and open up to the kids.

They already had shitty lives as it was. They don't deserve to have another shitty bastard added to that list.

Besides, I don't have much to lose.

Anyways, I had won Leo over by presenting him with a couple of my favorite games from my previous world. I wished we had more people to play with, but at the same time, Leo was such a bright kid and learned so fast that if it kept up, we wouldn't have much competition, and I wouldn't be surprised if I stopped being a match for him at some point either.

And, as crafty as it may sound, I have faith that hearing us play and have a good time will inspire other kids to come to us. A hell of a risk, but I'll take on their mothers. Bring it on, you harpies.

Anyways, I was able to procure a custom set of playing cards made completely in line with the standard issue French deck from my world, as in Spades, Hearts, Clubs and Diamonds, from the Ace up to the King and Jokers, and I played a lot with my brother a bit more complicated games compared to what I did with someone like Bismarck. We wouldn't be touching Poker anytime soon, as even I wasn't sure of its rules, but I soon enough got Leo started with playing go fish, which tested both our honesty and bluffing, continental for risk vs reward management (though this one would only get truly good once Azura started joining us), old maid because of course, and I soon enough we were playing my favorite of them all: Rummikub. Goddamn Leo was bright for the thing, and though he did struggle at the beginning, he learned from the best, a.k.a. yours truly.

Other than that, Leo actually helped _me_ with magic, or at least started doing so once he was more articulate. It seemed that he could be a good teacher. Though he still had problems with patience, and I wasn't a very bright student in all honesty, Leo managed to break down his explanations very competently and give his steps cohesively given his age. Leo was even growing on Iago, for crying out loud.

Truly a bright child.

Another of the children that I suppose didn't make it in canon, that I've been getting close to, is Marcus. He's a 5 year old with spiky, wild snow white hair and bright blue eyes.

He's also a fucking rascal,

Marcus is quite spoiled by his mother. He enjoys pulling pranks on his brothers and sisters and is showing the tendencies of a bully. I wish I had more time to step in, but as he's very young and spends most time near his mother, and _when_ I hear he's causing trouble I'm often busy with my classes, so I can't quite give him a piece of my mind. He usually messes with Bismarck, Lucas, Lorraine and Rosetta.

Speaking of, Rosetta is 3 years old now and is a quiet one too, and she's hella cute, if I do say so myself. She's got a somewhat muted cherry red hair that's common for Chevois citizens, I hear, and also a pair of beautiful, piercing eyes of a vibrant pinkish magenta hue, traits she inherited from her mother, who's also very pretty, but fucking hell, she's one of the most stuck up of the remaining concubines.

What was that one phrase about internal and external beauty…?

Anyways, Rosetta is still too little and doesn't spend much time on her own, however, her mother, as I said, is quite the bitch and doesn't really pay attention to her, leaving Rosetta in the care of the maids. She also is one of the remaining concubines dumb enough to keep antagonizing the others after all this time and so many dead children. I think she's still deluded in thinking she can use her beauty to pull Garon to her side.

So pretty, evil and dumb. What a winning combination we got here.

There's also Lorraine, who's near Leo in age. I actually like spending time with Lorraine, as she's surprisingly easy to get along with. She's a bit of a social butterfly, and she's getting crafty as hell in avoiding punishments by sweet talking her way out. It's… quite a surprise to see a 7 year old getting away from fucking Iago merely by wit. Since she's skipping classes so often, she usually stumbles across Marcus being a bully, and then her mean streak gets going. She's the main reason her and Marcus' mothers will be causing the next death, I fucking swear, and it's why I keep a close eye on Lorraine, usually by pulling her along with Leo if or when I can, provided she's up to it.

…Doesn't happen too often, to be perfectly honest.

Finally, we also have Lucas. Oh lord, little Lucas. He's also a rascal, but for completely different reasons to Marcus, which get him constantly in trouble. Lucas is a blistering hothead that keeps trying to prove himself to everyone and everybody that remotely looks at him funny, which I've heard is a result of his mother encouraging him "to not be a wuss" and that kind of garbage, which is why he keeps getting in fights with Marcus, who absolutely _adores_ pressing his buttons, to great effect of course. It's very irritating seeing his dumb 4 year old self constantly on the nursery. Poor guy will get his ass thoroughly kicked when he starts his education next year.

Also, Elise finally joined us this year. Born right on time at March 19, just a few weeks after Azura's birthday. We weren't allowed to see her directly, as her mother kept her zealously guarded and away from everybody in the castle not named Garon (who I heard had only graced her during childbirth and promptly disappeared), and honestly, it was also a bit of a surprise. Her mother was one of the most reserved ones, and I was very surprised that she had managed to keep it hidden at all. As far as I knew, Xander was the only one that knew, and it was only because Garon had confided so in him. Not even Arete knew, but then again, she was used to Garon's lifestyle.

Sadly, Elise's mother passed away just a few days after giving birth. Apparently the strain was simply too big on her, and had been sickly ever since before. Right now Elise was being nursed by the maids

I'm… a bit torn on how to proceed, honestly. On one hand, I'm glad she's finally here with us, and I will protect her as best as I can, but on the other, I'm not sure I can even give my time to her. I'm already splitting my time with advanced classes on top of my normal studies as well as spending time with Azura, Bismarck, Leo, trying to look out for Lucas, Rosetta, Lorraine and fucking Marcus, and also scheming with Arete.

But the single one I have the most trouble getting along with is Camilla, surprisingly, and I suspect it's because she's received her orders to kill yet another of our siblings soon, and some part of me suspects her next target is me, actually. We share classes since we're so close in age, and she does well for herself in basically all subjects, but Camilla actively refuses to reach out to anyone.

It's heartbreaking to see her suffer in silence, and so far all my efforts have been for naught. But I guess I'll keep trying.

Finally, there's Mr. Big Brother himself, Xander.

Xander is one hell of a case. I can only imagine all the stress he lives under as Crown Prince, and though I don't know how close he was to his retainers, their deaths have hit him hard. That much is obvious considering how Garon's been distancing himself from all of his children. Heck, I don't think he even knows half of our names. Anyways, I don't talk to Xander often, but I know he's always nearby, that his best wishes are with us. I wish I could do more for him, I truly do… but I have my own things to focus on.

Namely, because I fear that our last brother between Xander and me will do something absolutely stupid soon.

Our last brother is Norbert, who's my senior 2 years and 1 junior to Xander, and I'm very tempted to say that the main problem regarding his position is that frankly put, he doesn't have any sibling to support him. Here's the thing, right now the order goes, from youngest to eldest: Elise (Newborn, 4 months), Rosetta (3), Lucas (4), Marcus (5), Lorraine (7), Leo (Also 7), Bismarck (7), Azura (Yet also 7), Camilla (8), Me (Also 8), Norbert (10), and finally Xander (11), and this left us on quite an awkward situation.

I had been flocking the children together as best as I could, but it was a nightmare from merely an administrative standpoint for both myself and our caretakers, because Norbert had been basically left behind. Xander is basically on his own group by himself, with the crown prince position demanding him to create distance to us, but as things had been progressing lately, I was the 3rd Prince, and my own unique approach to the situation plus what our tutors had planned beforehand had allowed me to basically lead all the 7 year olds, with the others being too young, so I was too young to integrate Norbert into our group, and he also actively refused to join us, His mother was one of the absolute worst, too, so we had a tough cookie to us.

I could splice my time to spend time with the 7 year olds due to our schedules sharing most breaks, and the youngest ones being the youngest had a bit of free reign in how they spent their time.

Norbert not so much. His classes were 2 years above mine, and though I did share some of my advanced classes with him (we shared the teacher but not the subjects), he understandably didn't feel comfortable around me and I didn't have much in the way to make conversation of when he both gave me the stink eye and actively refused to interact with any of the siblings. Being just 1 year old below Xander, I figured he preferred catching up to him rather than "lowering" himself to us, the other bastard children, and with Leo honestly growing away from trying to surpass Xander, a path I'd help him follow (though I had my doubts); It was just far healthier for him. It'd take a hell of a time and maybe his mother would surely need to step out of his life, but I'd try. So Norbert had no pressure from below, but still one crushing pressure from above.

I'd try to play it slow with him. He'd be one hell of a cookie to crack, but that wouldn't stop me. In just a few months I had gotten Lorraine to attend just a few more of her classes and I had managed to score a good spanking on Marcus (of which I felt damn proud of, even if I got myself on his mother's target). I'd keep his and Camilla's spots open.

The problem of course, would be getting Norbert to desist trying for the throne. A task easier said than done, of course. A task I still wasn't sure how to follow. I have a better chance at influencing the younger ones than I do Camilla and Norbert, as cold as it sounds.

On the July I was 8 years old, I want to think we Nohrian siblings, even with our ill bickering, loads of issues around our lives still poking at us from every corner and at every bone, and still with the threats of more deaths hanging among us, I want to think that all of us, standing side by side at the graves of the brave people who protected Xander's, our eldest brother's, life, we had a chance to brave the whole fucking universe.


	8. From Place to Place

**A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates. Rough week irl**

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**Track 8: From Place to Place**

"Big Brother Ignis?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

"Snooping"

"Again?"

"Yeah"

"Why?"

"Because reasons"

"You know that's rude _and_ weird, right?"

"Little Sister Azura, it's not a problem if they don't find out"

"…You're not denying it being rude or weird?"

"Can't really do"

"…I will come visit you in the dungeon when I can"

"Don't forget to bring me cookies"

"That I can't promise"

"Can't, won't, or don't want to?"

"Yes"

"Azura, I love you, but you can be quite mean sometimes, you know?"

"You're a bad example, big brother"

"Then why do you follow?"

"Shouldn't I?"

I gasp in mock surprise. "My little sister is beco- aw nuts, they moved"

An awkward pause.

"…You're not going to follow them?"

"Even I have standards, dammit"

"Huh… do you now?"

"Yes!"

Another pause.

"Azura, do you even know what standards mean in this context?"

"Not really"

"Then why did you follow?"

"Did it hurt you?"

"I mean… kind of?"

"There you go"

"…I've created a monster, haven't I?"

I'll forever remember the first time Azura made an observation I wasn't sure how to feel about, namely the fact that I was something of an eavesdropper, and of course I couldn't convince her of my intentions being pure, for greater justice, and it stuck ever since. To be fair, she wasn't completely wrong, though being called out on it so blatantly, it took quite an inhuman amount of willpower to not plop facefirst into my book and down to the hallway's tiled floor. The grimoire I had been using as cover did slip away from my fingers, however.

My ward! My sweet cover of deceit! My shield from the prying eyes, blown to smithereens!

Girl has no tact, no chill, and no mercy, I swear. I usually spied on the maids (not that way, dammit!), as their gossip was… _juicy_ and holy hell _how_ it helped to keep up to date with the new occurrences around the castle. Of course I didn't trust everything I heard from them blindly, as I cross-referenced it first with Arete if it seemed important enough, as it was _gossip_ first and foremost, after all.

You'd be surprised how much info leaked around the castle no matter how hard Garon tried to hide it, anyways.

Not that it's stopped me ever since, if this latest exchange is anything to go by.

Women are truly mysterious creatures.

In all honesty though, the process of leaking and mangling information usually began by the guardsmen and soldiers who were either at the right place at the wrong time, or near the wrong persons at the right times, and after that it became the broken telephone game where basically the whole staff of the castle played along both knowingly and unknowingly into this massive web full of hiccups, interruptions, loopbacks and distortion until "King Garon skipped his greens today" becoming "Master Iago wants to [REDACTED]" is a common result (WHAT THE HELL YOU FILTHY DEGENERATES!?). The recipient getting changed somewhere along the way is the worst.

…All of this is quite an exercise, mind you, especially getting to where the more reliable information tends to come from and end, and who in particular tend to twist the information the most.

…And this is also one of my new bad habits. I didn't keep in touch with my social circles whatsoever if I could avoid it outside of the absolute bare minimum in my previous life, and I'm sure past me would have been horrified in seeing the despicable creature I have become. But holy shit I need to entertain myself with something outside of magic and pointy metal sticks of killing before I go insane, and all of my pastimes from before are basically unavailable. I know I lack discipline in a lot of stuff, as my music classes have been coming along very slowly, but the lack of distractions is driving me nuts.

Which is why I _may_ or may not have been part of that telephone line a few times, both to truly get information spread around the castle for my agenda with Arete, trace back information (this was one of the rarer uses though, way too complicated and 99.9% of the time not worth it)… and to get some kicks out of it.

Having mangled "Miss Rachael (Rosetta's mother) changed her ointments" into a questionable of "Miss Rachael's begun a slime treatment" (never got to know if there's actually slime treatments in Nohr and was honestly too afraid to ask) devolve into "Miss Rachael's contracted _parasitical feet fungi_" merely by mentioning truffles offhandedly during a semi-related conversation was hilarious.

Especially when Bethzabel (Lorraine's mother) handed some form of strong-smelling ointment to Rachael during dinner, telling her smugly that "She should know better" and Ornella (Marcus' mother) also chided in saying she could guide her to a "specialist". I almost broke into a fit of mad laughter, and I swear some of the maids in the dining hall also were about to burst in tears. Arete's dumbfounded expression was also priceless; and father, you may not be around much these days, and I fucking swear I'll be the first one to notice when you start ranting about some particular dragon and blood and thunder, but your poker face was absolutely hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

Anyways, this has become a morbid form of entertainment for me to fuck with the concubines. I know I really need a hobby, because a 9 year old playing this kind of thing is not quite normal, I think, even less so with the effort I often put into it.

And yeah, my birthday came a few weeks ago, woohoo? We're now in September, and the temperature's already dropping back to near zero levels.

For the most part, things have slowly started getting quite restless, because Xander's next birthday will be a big deal… for all of us siblings. There's been a big change of plans. The 7 year olds and up until Norbert, we're all going to start training together with Xander. And this was a surprise even for me, the one who's usually one step or two ahead thanks to Arete relaying important info. This is gonna suck, and I don't know what the hell possessed Garon to make this; both Arete and I are still investigating what caused this turn of events, and so far the best conclusion I've personally drawn is that the tensions with Hoshido are rising. The details regarding exactly when Leo (being the youngest of the original war-oriented Nohrian siblings) exactly began training are honestly fuzzy to me, but if I'm not misremembering, Leo actually _did_ train alongside Xander at some point, which was where his resentment took roots as Xander is, to put it bluntly, a complete monster as a soldier and fighter.

As for Marcus and below, I honestly have no clue. Marcus has just a few months of practice in. He's just begun his education, and he has not held a training sword before, _he's 5 years old, for frick's sake!_ Not even Camilla and I held training blades until we were well a year in and had gone through some hellish physical drills. Lucas and Rosetta for their parts are way younger to boot, and if all of this is pointing to Garon starting his descent into madness via Anankos, this means the Cheve incident from canon is not as far as I imagined.

Shit, we're already getting there.

_We are actually walking to that path_.

Or maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself. I've been acting a bit erratically, and I know, I'm coping as best as I can, but I can't help but be stressed for a number of reasons.

What if Arete dies in this interval?

If Corrin's kidnapping actually goes through?

If Azura's kidnapping also goes through? She's also brightening up and opening up slowly but surely, and I think she very much despised Nohr as a whole in canon.

And that's not even mentioning the butterflies I think I've caused already.

Camilla isn't close to any siblings, not even Azura, not to Leo from what I know, and definitely not to me.

Leo seems to be quite stable and not hung-up on Xander, which may just displace Brynhildr from canon if only slightly, though I'm not too worried about this particular part of this topic.

Norbert is well and alive and so are a number of other children who didn't originally make it.

I want to think that the Concubine Wars may well be set to go on a different route. If Corrin is to be taken in say, 2 years, that's still 2 years before Xander picks up Siegfried and he himself takes reign of the situation. By Nohrian law men are adults once they're 16 and women once they're 14, which is why Xander can officially assume his position and start enforcing his will officially when he hits that age. From what little I remember from Camilla's supports, she never mentioned the exact time the wars ended, and I want to think that her referring to herself as a "child" was somewhat in line with my standings of age from my previous world.

Because if she wasn't and was actually talking as if she was talking in universe at face value, then it won't be too long until she becomes "an adult" (and also me by proxy, but that's neither here nor there), and this causes a fuckton of cultural dissonance with me. I know that in ye olden times back from my world, the age at which one was considered adult was often defined by a number of factors, including but not necessarily limited to customs ingrained by lifestyle (which branches from a LOT of things), the mortality rate as well as the birth rate, life expectancy, medical advancements, and so on and on.

But between knowing and _actually living it_ is a world of difference. If I understand it correctly, there are no proper "teenage" or "puberty" phases in the social sense for Nohr, as in you're either a kid training to do a job, or you're an adult. There is no in-between, no true phase for discovery of the self and the like.

When I realized that, it hit me quite harshly.

Bastard children as we were, _we still_ _were_ Princes and Princesses of Nohr, from the womb to the dust; and if Nohr shall go to war, _we are to follow through_. We are expected to lead the people, bleed by them, bleed _with_ them, and _die_ with them if necessary.

"For the Glory of Nohr!"

Haaaah….

Iago would love to drill me split in half if he heard this ranting, berating me that _of course_ I was a prince and hindsight is 20/20 and all that and that I should be ashamed for discarding his "superior" lessons like that.

Iago, if your lessons were as great as you think they are, you would've roped li'l ol'me into playing the part Garon wants of me.

Oooh, will write that down somewhere. I just know I'll be able to use that on him sometime in the near future. I can actually go full-on with that type of snarky remarks for a good couple hours, actually. Got enough salt to go on for a while, after all.

Whatever the case, I don't particularly have love for Nohr as a country; I'll leave that up Xander's alley. I simply don't _love_ places on such a grand scale, I'm just not that kind of person, even today, second childhood in. I could grow to love a home, a small place, heck, I think I grew to like my city of that life long past, even if my memories were fuzzy and not all of them good.

Is it because my pride is different? Too self-focused or self-indulgent? Is it because I'm fundamentally "alien" to Nohr on principle? I decided I would live this life for myself and my siblings, but I often find that we are not walking the same path. Whether it be our human nature making us unable to truly understand, refuse to understand, or stopping us from reaching out in the first place, or even forces greater than our own dictating our lives (Hello, reincarnated schmuck here!), or merely just me overthinking everything again and refusing to fit in out of a twisted sense of self-gratification, I am not able to love a "country" that has done nothing for me but bring me pain.

I don't think I can grow to ever love _Nohr_, not even remotely close to what Xander, and possibly the other royal children hold.

I was often berated that I often focused so much on the picture right in front of me that I forgot the details and side views, both in my previous life as well as this current one.

…Something I committed murder on. In hindsight.

Have I really changed that much? Even if I have no names for the memories of my past self to attach to, even if I don't physically look the same anymore, even if I have now two childhoods and a semblance of an adulthood to rely on, why do I keep making the same mistakes?

I can't in good conscience act as a _Prince_ with this mindset when I have nothing but disinterest for the nation I'm supposed to lord over, but I'll have to nonetheless, because there is no other option for me other than going onwards. Because even after all this, we still have a motherfucking apocalypse looming about and threatening to ruin our day.

So at the end of the day, I'll keep walking onwards, because there's literally nothing else to do for me. Not because I have an obligation to Nohr or its people as a Prince, but just because it's the right thing to do, I guess?

Holy shit, wonder how much that conviction will last me on the battlefield. At least put in some effort! After all this time, I still have things to follow through, and I refuse like hell to let the work I've done, minuscule as it might be, be for naught.

* * *

I met Arete two nights after our new schedules were announced. By that time things had already begun mobilizing, and Arete had received some news regarding the Court and our little projects. A bunch of mixed results, sadly.

In order: The fertilizers and crop rotations are varying in effectiveness. Turns out that the areas near the borders nearest to the Bottomless Canyon are promising, because there's been a slight increase to some crops, most importantly potatoes, which is very good; potatoes are noble as hell, and can survive a lot of punishment and harsh conditions and are easy to both transport and carry, so with just a little bit of love they're blooming nicely, and even the quality of the very sparse territories we've got in the colder sections, like Armos, are eager to start.

Chinampas, however, were a lot more mixed as expected. Simply put, too much of the water in the swamps and bogs is unsuitable for crop growing, not to mention that the farmers are still having problems getting accustomed to such a strange method of farming. However, certain countries with the tamer conditions like the Nohrian lands near to Nestra and Port Dia are slowly picking up, with the latter being in a curious state; Port Dia is a trade center first and foremost, so it simply isn't ready to start out producing their own crops, there just isn't infrastructure for it. I'm all in for investing on it, and even Garon seems impressed from what Arete's told me; establishing a Nohrian outpost near Port Dia will be massive, so for once, one part seems to have been greenlighted and proceed.

HA!

The lands near Windmire though, are a complete bust. The woods (Like the Forlorn) around the capital and quite a few kilometers around have not shown any progress, and even if they were to pick up, not a soul has taken up to the task of moving to such cursed parts of the country, as it is too dangerous. The woods near the heart land of Nohr are filled to the brim with dangerous creatures and water that tends to be on the poisonous side, so even looking for remotely usable water would take way too much effort.

HA!

Turns out, Nohr is home to creepies I never saw in the game, and if my newly acquired bestiaries and encyclopedias aren't lying to me, there're quite a few examples of notable megafauna in the country, which I want to think will stand-in for the copious amounts of Faceless the game threw at you with no rhyme nor reason nor relenting to some degree.

_Spiders. Why did it have to be goddamn spiders?_ I'll be the first to admit I'd rather face some eldritch humanoid abomination than a 3 meter wide tarantula. Heck, bring me Anankos even.

…I lied, please don't.

The most notable of these "Altomantulas" (that's the name the encyclopedia gave me for the species, though the common term for them is Titan or Giant Spiders, the latter being the most commonly used term while the former is used more for the elders, as they tend to be bigger than the norm) is the Altomantula Queen, which according to the records of those who've survived encounters with it, lies deep within the forest and mountains to the northwestern borders of Nohr, in the aptly named Deadlands, more specifically within the Shadow Forest. That territory is bad news, and the only reason Nohrians keep poking their noses in there is that the Deadlands are adjacent to the Obsidian Cliffs (or Canyon, both are used interchangeably), a steep mountainside where some very tough wyverns thrive, which are usually taken from and injected into our own farms to refresh and toughen our samples, while some historical figures have also outright tamed a few of those Black Wyverns (how they call them to differentiate from the usual ones due to their pitch black scales) and mounted them to battle, like King Siegbert II so famously did (the same one who signed that treaty with the Ice Tribe). From what I understand, the Black Wyyverns and Altomantulas are the main competitors for terrain there and have been fighting for centuries over supremacy of the area with no clear victor for either side, so I want to think that they've managed to compromise into a sense of balance, whether they want It or not.

The fact that there are fucking spiders who often snack on dragons (lesser though they may be compared to their primal ancestors) is the stuff of nightmares. And to make matters worse, I also heard an old tale from some drunk veterans that apparently, there actually _are_ Spider Tamers out there. Such class is nightmare fuel, and I fervently hope they were just messing with me. I don't need the idea of some crazy motherfucker riding into battle atop a Giant Spider of Doom.

I've also learned that the chicks coming from crossing Black Wyverns with other species, which are just simply called Dark Wyverns as a general term, are the most common rides for Malig Knights and not hard to see among the Wyvern Knights in training; from what I understand, Dark Wyverns have a particular disposition amongst their kind in that they don't get spooked by magic unlike most creatures, which happens to be an oddity among the various creatures around the continent, as apparently, even Dark Knights have to spend a lot of time to get their horses to remain calm when their riders cast magic. I haven't learned yet where the dark falicorns used by Dark Fliers enter in this assertion, but since info on them is scarce as is and I don't think I'll ever get near one, I'm not too bothered.

As a side note, it seems that healing magic is a whole other case for mounted rides, as it doesn't seem to cause them discomfort. I'm not quite sure yet what exactly differentiates offensive magic from healing magic on a more… fundamental level, outside of their obvious military applications, but it is interesting to learn about the whys and hows of the various types of units Nohr has nonetheless.

Anyways, Black Wyverns are way too violent to tame and apparently do show more discomfort towards magic compared to Dark Wyverns, who are still very capricious and irritable creatures mind you. However, apparently neither the Black nor Dark Wyverns compare to the Grey or Metal Wyverns used by Wyvern Lords in terms of physical prowess alone. From what I've read, Metal Wyverns are both noble and sturdy as hell, and if the game is anything to go by, they pack a mean punch. They do show a heavy aversion towards magic and have overall shitty resistances, but they do make for a strong vanguard and recon units nonetheless. The Metal Wyverns that don't make it to the army can see work in delivery and physical labor, I hear.

And why is all this spider and mostly wyvern talk important? Because when Queen Arete introduced me to the idea of Wyvern delivery, I of course immediately jumped the gun. Aerial delivery is something which made my previous world absolute _thrive_ in commerce. In the air, you don't have to worry about the ground routes nor any conditions of the places you're travelling through, and though the things needed to have in account for air traveling are no less important in comparison, it certainly is more convenient in other aspects.

The problem is, that it didn't sink to me immediately that in this type of world, bandits also have access to the skies.

Which brought us to an issue we were having: there was an uprising band of criminals who were growing surprisingly annoying. The reports stated that some years ago, a caravan of wyvern experts wandered a bit too near the Shadow Forest and got offed by Altomantulas… but the poor surviving shmucks also had the bad luck of coming across the titular band of thieves, they were captured on and forced to cooperate with the thieves to stay alive…

Not that it did them much good in the end. Anyways, the thieves were surprisingly competent and had the captured fellas help them raid a wyvern farm way too out of the Cliffs. The reason it had went unnoticed until now is that the work the bandits made to make it seem like all the caretakers were killed by Altomantulas and the outpost they took over was way too out of reach for the route that doomed caravan ever took.

Because these merry criminals have now officially declared themselves rebels to the Nohrian crown and have been organizing a small militia with the chicks they raided and raised on their own. They are competent and slowly growing in numbers, and from what I hear, their leader remains charismatically anonymous.

What manner of insane luck or lack of thereof needed for all this to happen? Turns out that one of the survivors from the caravan was one of the most esteemed Wyvern Experts within Nohr, a noble with a position in the Court of all things who had been believed dead until a few months ago in February, when his corpse was found floating downstream in Port Dia, and Garon's men have been tirelessly searching to quell this rebellion now.

How do these rebels affect Arete and me? The fuckers had the gall of raiding our promising terrains near the Port, and now we have a disturbing lack of crops, stolen from the caravans, but it's not even that what bothers me. What does bother me is the fact that there's been an increase in thievery across the various terrains that have been blooming under the new agricultural practices.

HA!

We don't know what the fuck is going on behind the scenes, but either the leader of the rebellion is too smart for his or her own good, extremely lucky, or _someone is feeding that bastard information_. The increase in harvests does _not_ bode well on a national scale at all, but… for a _smaller_ scale? Fucking hell it does. The fact that they haven't razed the farms themselves is a big clue on what they want to do. Word's already spreading out that we're having a never seen before increase in crops, and I'm afraid that if this thing escalates, more shitty people will start competing with these rebels and eventually it becomes a case of the chicken that laid golden eggs.

I'm not sure I even want to involve Garon in this, frankly. On the one hand, having the King himself persecute and execute these guys is by all means justice and it _will_ solve the problem, but I'm afraid that it also is the nuclear option. If we sic him at the bandits, nothing's stopping these guys from burning the lands down to prevent _anyone_ from having access to the lands at all. Farmable soil is already sparse and precious in Nohr, and I'm not smart enough to know if we can survive the blows.

And I can't help but wonder… did I cause this? I upset the balance by introducing a method to increase our crop production, and it's already showing signs of destabilization in the country as I expected, but… I wasn't expecting _this_ type of particular unbalance. In canon, Nohr was basically united on two banners: those who followed Garon, and Corrin's army, but more or less everyone was focused on the war with Hoshido. Nohr is a dying land, and Garon promised the masses that they would _take_ the resources they deserved from Hoshido, but with Arete's and my efforts, now it's shown that at least _something_ can be produced from within, but at least in this stage, it doesn't seem practical enough to support the whole country, and… if I'm being completely honest, I don't believe it'll _ever_ be enough.

With this information in mind… I just hope that if Hoshido decides to invade in a Birthright scenario or a similar one with all this in mind, _when_ the damage escalates… we won't be too weak from internal conflicts to avoid meaningless death.

I think I've been too naïve.


	9. Roads of Dust

**Track 9:** **Roads of Dust**

Combat training with Xander was even more brutal than our already straining drills from before. I had to give it to our eldest brother: he was a paragon of discipline. He didn't complain a single bit nor show a single sign of weakness during our sessions, like he truly was like a statue. Xander's teachers became our own, them being important commanders across the very elite of the Nohrian Army as well as renowned veterans from days long past.

Among those, was one Gunther Albion, the very same that served as a retainer to Corrin in canon. Gunther didn't train us that often, being that he served more of an actual sparring partner and assistant to Bernard Franz, an older man with an impressive build and a ridiculous moustache, who often boasted about being "Commander of the Third Vanguard, formerly of the First" and didn't hesitate to bore us with his "heroic exploits against the hoshidan trash across his many storied battles to be recorded within the upcoming New History of Nohr: Volume I of unknown".

The reason he was Commander of the Third Vanguard, I later heard, was because he was insufferable to all of his comrades in the First Vanguard and had been demoted down after a scandal involving a commoner girl he had an affair with (he was an older man and she very young, for starters, not to mention he was actually married and had two sons in Blackfrost; the scandal was an opportunity taken at the first instant, as his Commander in Chief was honestly tired of him but couldn't outright get rid of him because of his talent and achievements), but for all of his snobby arrogance, I do admit he was a monster of a soldier, as expected. He was the one who instructed Xander directly in the sword, and was actually preparing him to wield Siegfried, because holy fuck anime swords are big.

And holy shit was Bernard both frank and merciless on Norbert and me too from day 1. It's why I could never hate him outright, because Bernard, for all of his rambunctiousness, was by all means a storied soldier who had seen the horrors of the battlefield and didn't sugarcoat his training and interactions with us, telling us that mistakes _would_ cost us our lives, and by direct order of King Garon, he would beat the living tar out of us to make us as good as Xander. And also, holy fuck did he have balls of steel, because he had the gall to butt heads with Garon himself in saying that if Xander were to fall, we would have to take his place; few were as frank as him with the King. Later I heard from Arete that Sir Bernard's family situation is peculiar too in that he has distant ties to the crown, which has given him some measure of protection from being decapitated via Bölverk outright, because while he certainly wasn't the most sensible of people, he really was a fantastic teacher with a longline of achievements to secure him his position (when not rambling about said exploits).

It was he who decided I wouldn't be getting away from training with swords, because I had been trying to get onto spears, and he had given me a big no-no. The main reason I had started trying them out was because, frankly speaking, it was the one saving grace I had been showing in my training. While I was still learning to ride horses (holy hell that was an experience), lancing from horseback is way easier compared to other weapons and was somewhat intuitive for my average abilities. Cavaliers and Paladins in general were the standard mounted units in the army, and from the game, Xander's class, with him heavily focused on the sword because Siegfried. The reason Nohrians preferred mounted combat still evaded me, as most of the classes from that game featured mounts (Wyvern Riders and their promotions, Cavaliers too, Dark Knights, Bow Knights, and Strategists plus their respective overlaps, that's about half of the classes of the Nohrian half of the game if I'm not wrong, while I think there's only Sky Knights from Hoshido, as Mechanists aren't technically mounted units), but as part of the Royal Family, I _did_ have a bit of an advantage of getting a mount if I proved myself over the common soldier. Thinking of it, maybe it was part of that why Silas cold have a horse? He _was_ part of a minor noble family after all.

Another topic I wanted to try was to get into spellcasting from horseback, which Bernard had stopped me. I needed to seriously improve my horsemanship before I even thought about bringing a Tome atop a horse, and I'd need an actual Dark Knight instructor if I really wanted to do that. I at least can cast Fire very consistently now… while standing at the very least. Bernard wasn't versed in magic outside of the basest of notions, but he did know that a rookie like me would only get himself hurt, so he told me that until I improved both my casting and my riding enough and deemed ready by himself for the riding (plus swordsmanship and lancing) and Iago for my magic (who still was our magic instructor).

Thank fuck for having adult insight and following the rules. Norbert wasn't so lucky.

Because of us starting to train together, I learned soon that while I had talent for magic (still haven't been able to cast Thunder yet), it was at least _some_ magic potential. Norbert had none, and though he had been busting his ass off trying to learn it, he just had neither talent nor capacity for it.

It was… disheartening seeing him try and fail to get even Ember off. And to make matters worse, me being younger than him sent him into a spiral of defensiveness once he realized I was versed and at least somewhat capable on it. While he didn't bully me outright, I always felt him glaring daggers behind my back during training and studying, and once or twice he had rudely pushed me aside when I was walking near him, which slowly started escalating into dropped bottles of ink in my parchments and disappeared quills and training swords. The one thing he took pride on was his physical strength, though that was a no brainer, he had two years of experience over me and a much tougher body, so I couldn't match him whatsoever during our spars.

I hated sparring with Xander and Norbert. Always got my ass handed a couple dozen of moves too early by the former and a couple dozen too many bruises from the latter. Thank fuck for Staves and vulneraries; hope my liver doesn't start protesting way down the line if I ever make it far enough.

Anyways, one day Norbert decided that enough was enough, and decided to scare Xander and my horses via loudly yelling, clapping violently and smashing his sword against his buckler throughout the course of a lesson when we were nearby. He escalated it and shit got ugly real fast. Due to me being a moron and not grasping my horse's mood well enough, I lost control of him quickly, who in return also scared Xander's horse, and soon enough we had two wild Horses thrashing around the field with two princes on their backs.

The way Xander and I were saved was brutal to say the least. I had panicked and held onto my horse as best as I could screaming like a little girl all the while, having lost my mind as well because holy shit a 1 and a half meter animal kicking with the rage of the wild is scary. Xander then also fell victim to the panic because he was worried about me, the _one_ crack I ever saw him show during all of our time together, because he wasn't used to have us little brethren around in a scenario like this, and in his worry he also lost control of his own horse.

Bernard, Gunther and a couple of other assistants roped Xander's horse first and thoroughly brought it down, which after that, Iago put down the horse with what I was told was an impressive display of Fimbulvetr magic that killed the horse instantly via impaling it with ice spears. The process was repeated with much less finesse for me, and though neither of us got injured, it was one hell of an experience.

All of us got one hell of a scolding, which eventually brought us to Garon. I was honestly raging at that. It was neither Xander nor my own fault that it happened, it was because of Norbert being a little shit, but we all got off with corporal punishment.

However, those punishments really set me off to despise knowing beforehand how things are handled in the royal family. I got a session of 15 whippings to the back, Norbert got 30, while Xander got _60_. The reasoning? I got the lightest because I was the youngest and was known to have trouble with my riding, but was punished nonetheless "for being weak". Norbert got twice the amount for causing the incident maliciously (he _did_ cave in to Garon's murderous glare) and acting unbefitting of his position. Xander got both of our combined amounts because as the eldest, he "should have been the one to prevent this situation from ever happening", and as so would receive both of our punishments plus a 15 of his own for losing control of his own horse, something that hadn't happened before. The incident "cost the army 2 very valuable horses for training", and as such, was the absolute lightest Garon would be willing to put us through in compensation.

I couldn't bear to look at Norbert in the eye directly after that. His antics stopped being directed at me for a while, and instead, I started seeing signs of bullying across the younger ones.

Why couldn't he learn his lesson? We all were in this together, but I just couldn't understand what his fucking thought process was, what made him make his brothers and sisters more miserable than they already were. I couldn't ever get to talk to him either, because he ignored me during lessons and promptly vanished after. Dinners weren't much better, as his mother shielded him from me, and outside of that he avoided any form of interaction with me, though to be fair, the same could be said about all of his brothers and sisters, not just me.

However, I want to think I grew close to Xander because of that incident. If only to avoid more punishment, I doubled my efforts in my classes, though I decided to stay away from horses for a while, which Bernard allowed me if only temporary. While I couldn't get completely away from them, part of Bernard's punishment for me included helping him clean the barns, wash the horses and generally just being a helping hand to the assistants whenever horses were involved. Norbert got away from it thanks to his mother berating the instructors, but I wasn't so lucky of course.

What. A. Mess.

Seriously, I don't envy those who do that for a living. I had a semblance of knowledge from my previous life about how raising and taking café of animals like horses goes around, but it was just the basest of notions. I knew it was a dirty, unglamorous job.

It wasn't remotely near to what I thought.

The smell. The _god__**damn**_ smell of horse dung clung to me like a deathly veil of silent pestilence for _weeks_ no matter how much I scrubbed myself; it stuck even after I stopped helping for a while. Between cleaning the barns and washing the horses, I'm pretty sure I've had enough of excrement for two lifetime's worth and more. It was only for about 2 months, but fucking hell.

The worst part was getting accustomed to the smell and not realizing I stunk everywhere I went. Arete had to stop our nightly meetings for a while, and Azura… oh lord… Azura…

_"__Big Brother Ignis. You smell" She had bluntly told me._

_"__I know" I responded, completely defeated._

_"__You should take a bath" She deadpanned as if it was obvious. Had to give it to her, her poker face was peerless even if her eyes were getting a bit teary._

_"__I've done that" I repeated for the millionth time. "I've done it again and again and again and againandagainandagainandagainandagain-"_

…

Yikes. She stopped talking to me for a while. I also couldn't bear to show my face at dinner either until the smell subsided somewhat. I've also grown to be self-conscious about me smelling too…

Ugh, accursed childhood traumas back with at it with a vengeance.

It's been quite a trying experience, if I do say so myself. If anything, getting so close and personal with the horses has helped me away from developing aversion to them. Both Garon and Bernard expect me to become at least a decent rider who won't be a liability to himself on the battlefield, so I have to do my part. Bernard has little patience for those who don't give their all to their training, and with how scared I am of getting sacked to my stern father, I had to gulp down the fear of a second incident like that one and get back onto a horse.

It's a trying experience, to be frank.

As for the 7 year olds (now 8), well, they are getting brought up to speed, with… varied results. They've been joining us for the lighter drills and exercises, but the classes themselves have been a mixed bag; I want to think that my personal situation is the only thing that makes it easier to digest the lessons on strategy, geography, history, politics (which I despise in particular with a passion) and everything in between. Azura and Leo in particular seem to be the only ones with a semblance of understanding what the hell Iago's mad ramblings about taxes and why the common populace is below us and hell and beyond, even though the former in particular always seems to doze off for a while. Leo, however, is a goddamn sponge for all forms of academic knowledge, and I'm very surprised to see him eagerly devour one book after the other, and though a lot of it is just outright memorization rather than true comprehension, I'm pretty sure he just needs to mature a bit more to truly understand what he's reading.

Iago has high hopes for him, and it somewhat terrifies me.

Lorraine and Bismarck, however, are truly falling behind, and though I've done my best to help them, I've never been too good of a teacher. Back in my world the _one_ thing I was ever able to help others with back when I attended school was math, and that was only when I truly understood the topic and decided to break it down step by step, and even then, unexpected questions always took me out of the loop. And with such a wide arrangement of topics for us to study, I cannot help them with everything when I myself am already struggling.

Nowadays, we have very little free time. When we're not doing martial drilling, we're receiving lessons, and when we're not doing either of those, we're either eating, or sleeping because we're so exhausted. We have little to no breaks or time for ourselves, and at the rate we're going, I'm afraid the little ones will break at some point.

Lorraine's been growing more irritable than ever, biting back at everyone with passive-aggressive snark that I think she's picked from her own mother and myself coupled with half-assing both her tests and drills, and it seems even corporal punishment is starting to become ineffective on her from what I've heard from the maids; Lorraine is getting craftier in the sense that she doesn't do anything to truly get our instructors pissed at her, and when she does get punished, she outright _mocks_ the damage done to her. I don't even know how the hell is an 8 year old pulling that and I don't think I want to find out. She often tries to use the other 8 year olds as scapegoats, and no matter how much I've tried to stop her, she just doesn't stop, and I'm afraid that if this keeps up she'll completely separate from the group.

Bismarck has also been a mixed bag. For _one_ thing, I'm glad he's been sticking closer to Leo, Azura and me more recently, even if he rarely says a thing. We've formed a bit of a small clique, if I do say so myself, in which I'm a bit of the leader if only due to being the eldest, Leo is the smart one, Azura the snarky one, and Bismarck the quiet one, but other than that, even if he's with us in body, I often feel he's not with us in spirit, at least not completely. I don't know the full extent of the damage he went through under his mother, but it's clear that even with her gone, he's still very haunted.

I've managed to pick up some of his signs from observing. When Bismarck starts feeling anxious one of his most common gestures is to hug himself, which I've taken to by simply putting my hand on top of one of his own if he's just starting, or on his shoulder or head if he's already curled, and just… stand like so, which so far has served to calm him down immensely. I've tried to get Azura and Leo to try and replicate me, but it's been a bit mixed too. When they're alone, Leo is too awkward and Azura too detached, and though I want to think they're really trying, they just can't connect too well with Bismarck as they are now. They're just children, after all, children who don't really know how to cope with their respective pains.

Heck, I don't even know how to deal with my own, other than redirecting my efforts into helping them however I can.

As for the younger ones, well, in the end they were spared and allowed to continue their education as usual. There're already 7 kids trailing behind Xander, so I guess Garon had enough humanity left to spare them. Thank fuck. I'm still worried about Marcus being a prick, especially since the little time I was able to spend with the little ones now doesn't exist at all for me now, and from what I've heard, Marcus hasn't changed. Lucas for his part's just begun his education, while Rosetta's still one year away, and I'm glad to see that these two seem to be on mostly good paths. Lucas is still a hothead, but from what little I've seen of him, his heart remains in the right place; he says he can't wait to grow up and join us grown-ups on the battlefield and help us defeat the enemies of Nohr, bless his innocent soul. Rosetta for her part has grown to be a remarkably calm girl; she doesn't speak much and prefers doing her tasks in silence without bothering anyone, which is one heck of a dichotomy when compared to her loud, rambunctious mother.

Finally, I want to think I've had a bit of a breakthrough with Camilla.

Turns out, she hates my guts, _thoroughly_. And I'm kind of surprised to be honest. I want to think I've been doing my best for everyone, but Camilla outright refuses to interact with me other than the absolute minimum necessary. To be fair, she has actually started to show care towards the 8 year olds, but at the same time, she doesn't spend much time with them, and she always has a complicated expression on her face when the 4 of us stumble across her, as we usually move together as a sort of unit or something. From what she told me, Camilla dislikes that I'm such a sweet talker and a liar.

In a way, I was kind of hurt by it. I didn't consider myself a smooth talker, heck, I often got in trouble for running my mouth when Iago was being insufferable (Bernard let me be cruder in comparison), but at the same time, I kind of understood where she was coming from about me being a liar, because by all means I _have_ an agenda of my own. I want to think that she felt I was an insincere person that could get our siblings hurt because of that same dishonesty… and she wasn't wrong per se. In the 9 years I've been "Ignis", I don't think I've had a 100% genuine interaction with anyone at all, even when I tried to do so. Not with Arete, not with Azura, not with Bismarck or Xander, heck, I don't think I've been sincere to myself either.

I don't think that being completely genuine is a possibility for me as I am, so I couldn't rebuke Camilla. I guess the good part is that there's been at least a change in the status quo, however minuscule? I'm just glad she's slowly opening up to the other kids at all.

That's all I want from her, to be honest. Because it's all too likely I will fuck up and ruin something, and when it happens, I don't want to cause more grief than necessary. I'm not conceited enough to say that I'm alone in this world or that no one depends on me, because I know I'm important to the younger kids at the very least, I've _tried_ to be a good brother to them, and though I know it may just bring them grief in the long run, I don't want to deny them whatever I can give them. Maybe it's just guilt, maybe it's me trying to run away from the atrocity I committed and keeping hope alive within me, twisted as it might be.

Perhaps, in the end, it's just that I want to live.


	10. Collapse

**Track 10: Collapse**

Nohrians are strangely in line with my old world regarding the New Year. It was one of the few celebrations the people still carried on even with the threat of war hanging on everyone's minds. The New Year is a celebration in remembrance of a whopping 365 days, which for us Nohrian Siblings didn't carry that much of a hopeful connotation, or at least it had grown to be that way among the 8 year olds and up. For us siblings who had fresh memories of the various murders and deaths in the family, of which many of us committing those deeds, the New Year had a wistful aura to us. We didn't need to say anything; we all mourned our family members at New Year in silence, each in our own ways.

It happened during late December. I don't know why, but that day had been… strange, even for our standards. Training in the snow was one of the things that had really eaten through our spirits. It just wasn't fun, but none of our teachers went easy on us. Bernard related to us a grisly story of how he had to spend a year bunkered in the snow and rations for just 1 week when his unit was ambushed during late December about 30 years ago in the northern Hoshidan tundra.

Only 3 men out of the original 20 made it back home, and Bernard made no effort to censor how gruesome things became as they lost hope throughout the course of 12 of the harshest months in his service. Out of respect for him, I never investigated what happened to the other 2 survivors. That was the one thing he never told us about, and we had all been scarred by the time he finished, so no one dared to ask.

I'm not sure if it was supposed to be some sort of reverse psychology test or something like that, because that tale really broke everyone's morale, well, at least everyone but Xander. Though we still were allowed to return to our cozy warm beds during the night, we had to spend the mornings drilling in armor and the absolute minimum of winter clothing.

Cold steel is one heck of a killing cage, let me tell you. Bernard has us train with the regular grade leather and steel armor, which was by all means susceptible to the elements. He had used the weather as an opportunity to teach us to not rely on additional equipment. As royalty, we would eventually get our personal sets of enchanted armor with wards to protect us from the ice snowstorms of the north, the volcanic firelands of the east, and the poisonous waters from the bogs that dotted basically all of the heartland, warding us at least to some degree, but Bernard was absolutely making us _earn_ the right to wear them by being able to survive without them. He said our armors would be a convenience first and foremost, not a necessity.

So we drilled straight for the whole month with minimal breaks in between. I want to think the only reason we didn't drop dead after the first week was due to the Dragon Blood in our veins or some divine providence. I'm honestly surprised we didn't lose some fingers or ears in the deep freeze either.

And I was told the people at Blackfrost trained like this _daily_. I couldn't really complain afterwards. We were in heaven compared to them.

Lorraine though… Lorraine was the first to break. She lashed out against Bernard in a display of pure hysteria I didn't think she was capable of producing. She had been understandably cranky ever since before, stressed and losing sleep over the course of the months ever since we began this joint training. For better or worse, Lorraine had never been much of a physical girl; she preferred staying indoors and practicing magic, as well as honing her cunning to try and become like her mother, who was quite a manipulative person in her own right.

However, Lorraine's mother, "Lady" Bethzabel, couldn't bear to lose face against the other concubines. We were all in this together, and since us the kids were either too intimidated to stop this inhuman training either by virtue of Garon or other factors, Bethzabel couldn't lose face by pulling Lorraine out. She just couldn't be the first one to do so.

I remember that just a few nights before the incident, Lorraine had one of the harshest discussions with her mother during dinner, ours and Garon's presences be damned. Lorraine was forcefully retired from the table by her mother. I had seen Lorraine complain and moan before, but I had never seen so full of anger before.

Again, the day it happened, it was a strange morning. For some reason, I think we all had a feeling something would go horribly wrong that day, or at least I felt that in my gut, inexplicable and ominous. We had all silently met at the training field as usual, we hadn't really spoken among each other, and we hadn't seen Lorraine nor her mother either at breakfast. Xander was like a stone, but it wasn't his usual stoic mask, something Leo also noted. I want to think Xander also felt something was wrong, because he seemed distracted. Norbert was also cranky and irritable as usual, but for once just shrugged us off rather than spending his time scowling and grunting at us. Leo had forgotten one of his tomes for the lessons with Iago later that day, while Camilla had forgotten to groom her hair properly, resulting in a frizzled wild lilac mane that would have gotten us a laugh in other circumstances, but it just didn't. Bismarck was the only one that didn't seem to forget anything, but he seemed even more out of it than usual. As for me, I didn't forget anything, but I was feeling anxious for some reason I couldn't place.

Bernard came to us a little later than usual as well, and he seemed to be exhausted in an unusual way. Rather than breaking out to us what would be the exercises for the day like he usually did, he just gave us instructions halfheartedly and told us to begin warming up, without having any of his usual boisterousness or energy on him.

Just as we were ready to start, one of the maids came rushing to Bernard and us, pleading for help.

We all scrammed back into the castle after Bernard, to be met by an unconscious Lorraine who was already being tempted to, and a horrible feeling permeating us. We weren't allowed near her, and soon enough the hall became busy as crossroads of physicians and healers ran right and left. Lorraine's limp body was placed on a stretcher and taken away.

Bernard cancelled his drills for the day and allowed us to go after her, though we weren't allowed in the infirmary. All of the 8 year olds and up came along. Even Xander and Norbert did, surprisingly.

We all stayed nearby. Camilla was actually the one to burst in tears first, and it was Leo and Azura who comforted her.

I approached Xander.

"What do you make?" I asked him solemnly.

He gave me a stony look and didn't answer immediately.

"I didn't see Lady Bethzabel" He observed eventually with a completely neutral voice.

"So you noticed too…" I almost growled in a low volume.

"What even happened?" Azura was the one to voice all of our thoughts.

"Judging from the scene…" Leo elaborated eloquently. "…I think she fell down the stairs"

And it was plausible, as she was by all means lying in an awkward angle at the base of the stairway up to the second floor.

"Or someone pushed her down" Norbert grunted crudely.

"I-It could have been just an accident!" Leo rebuked worriedly.

"Pfft" Norbert snorted bitterly. "Even if she's dumb as bricks, she's not stupid enough to fall down the stairs. We all know the steps and how to go up and down"

"Norbert, language" Xander eyed dangerously.

"What? You're telling me you believe she fell down?" Norbert retorted defiantly.

"I'm saying we should not jump to conclusions so soon" Xander disarms him spectacularly. "If anything, I think we should fetch Lady Bethzabel first"

"Don't count on me" Norbert replied immediately, raising both of his hands dismissively.

And an awkward silence washed over us, as no one really knew what to do or say.

"…I'll go" I eventually caved in.

"I'm coming with you" Xander surprisingly added himself to the effort.

"We'll stay here" Azura supplied. Leo nodded fervently. "If anything happens, we'll let you know. I do think someone should inform my mother and bring her here if possible"

"…I'll do that"

We were all taken by surprise when Bismarck spoke, his voice thin as a thread.

"Big Brother Ignis, close your mouth, or a spider might crawl inside" Azura jabbed me.

"Hey! I'm the only one who's slackjawed here!" I retorted, pointing fingers accusingly at Leo and Norbert.

I think I even saw Xander crack a minuscule smile there.

"If you've got time to run your mouth, you've got time to be running, Big Brother Ignis" Azura shut me down mercilessly.

I couldn't retort her, so I just gave a look to Xander, who gave me a solemn nod and took the vanguard.

"Keep an eye on the little ones, Norbert" I told my elder, who just grimaced at me.

"I'm not these brats' nan-!" He started, but was stopped by Xander's glare. "Ugh, whatever, just get away from here. Brat!"

Bismarck flinched at the call.

"If you find my mother, tell her to come here too"

The younger boy shuddered at Norbert's brashness, but gave a tiny nod nonetheless.

"Why are you all standing there like some dumb wyverns? Get a move on!" Norbert practically shouted.

And so we did. Bismarck darted with tiny steps towards the central hall, while Xander and I took for Lorraine's room.

The walls and hallways from castle Krakenburg were filled for once with the steps of children coming together rather than our usual skulking and tiptoeing.

Once Xander and I were out of earshot, I finally decided to speak plainly with him.

"She might not wake up" I said.

"We should stop from making assumptions" Xander said trying to keep his expression neutral, but grimaced soon after. "…But I agree it doesn't bode well"

"It was a long fall, and she didn't look too good" I followed darkly.

"We should keep hope that it was nothing major" Xander tried to reassure both of us, but it went unsaid that it didn't do much for either of us. "Whatever the case, our priority is to inform Lady Bethzabel of what occurred"

"Are you serious, Xander?" I deadpanned. "Are you saying she really doesn't know about this?"

"Ignis" Xander stopped me cold. "You should know better than to make assumptions and jumps in logic at every single step. _You more than anyone_"

I flinched.

"…You're right. I'm sorry" I apologized.

"Apology accepted" Xander eased. "I know you're worried about her, and I cannot blame you for being who you are"

"…Excuse me?" I queried incredulously.

Xander actually chuckled under his breath. It was such a strange gesture from him, so much it wasn't all that reassuring, if I were to be completely honest.

"I'm always observing, Ignis" He followed mysteriously. "It may not look like it, but I'm always observing all of my siblings. You're no exception"

"Bah" I grunted. "Rather than worrying about me, you should be taking care of yourself"

"How so?" He quirked an eyebrow in honest intrigue.

"You're not doing too well these days. I've even scored a few clean hits on you last week"

"That's just attesting that you're getting better" He shrugged me off.

"Or that you're slipping. Personally I think it's the latter"

"You're underselling your efforts, Ignis" Xander retorted without humor.

"Oh don't get me wrong, I know that avoiding Norbert's sword is no easy feat. Guy's brutal as it is" I whimpered gracelessly. "But even then, Norbert is Norbert, you are you. I can't have you letting me close the gap"

"Why?"

"Do you seriously picture me wielding Siegfried?"

"You don't want to?"

"Absolutely not"

"It would be an honor for you"

"Xander, we both know what Norbert or me wielding Siegfried would mean" I said in complete seriousness. "I don't want to be the one leading these kids. I'm not fit"

"Even if you already are leading them?" Xander rebutted me. "Ignis, are you telling me I have overestimated you?"

"How so?"

Xander actually stopped dead in his tracks, and I followed suit. He then turned back to me, a stern expression filling his features.

"…Ignis" He said after a while. "Are you blind enough to not know what position you've achieved among us?"

"…Care to enlighten me?"

Xander actually growled in irritation at me.

"Ignis, you _are_ the support of the younger children" He admits. "I may be the eldest, but I am not lying when I say I am as close to our brothers and sisters as you are"

"Norbert notwithstanding?" I retorted half joking, half serious.

"Norbert notwithstanding" My eldest brother admitted. "Even Camilla, tough and isolated as she is, relies on you"

"I'm afraid I don't see that" I denied. "The only thing I know for real is that these kids need more less things to worry about, and even if I'm not the best suited for the task, I try"

"And that's exactly why you're better than you think you are"

I had to stop for a moment there, as an unpleasant feeling began swelling in me.

"Even if…" I found that my voice was failing me. "Even if I really don't deserve that chance?"

Xander eyed me.

"I am not the one who can or should judge you, brother" Xander said sagely. "We humans can only do our best to live, especially in our case, because we carry our dead brothers and sisters within us. Or are you saying you've forgotten?"

"I could never" I replied solemnly.

"That's what I thought" Xander gave me an easygoing smile.

Goddamn, how could _he_, the actual child, be a much better adult than me, the reincarnated jerk!?

It was because of small moments like these, scarce as they were these days, that I found out I truly enjoyed Xander's company and insight. Amidst the maelstrom that was this family, Xander never judged us for our atrocities, he simply accepted our darkness as his own, and within these corridors lit by the perpetual twilight, we thrived as best as we could.

Against adversity.

Against ourselves.

Against destiny, if it be necessary.

It was an unspoken truth that Xander himself has also drawn the blood of our brothers and sisters, but how much didn't truly matter at this point. We were far too few nowadays.

And divided we would fall.

"Pfft" I chuckled. "Who did you copy that phrase from anyway?"

Xander's cheeks actually colored a light pink at that.

"We should redouble our step"

He ignored me after that, though to be fair I did nothing but pester him.

Xander was truly one of the few good things about being born in this family.

* * *

Lorraine woke up about a week later, though the truth was found out not too late after the incident itself happened. Lorraine did fall down the full flight of stairs, and broke her spine upon impact.

It was her mother, and it had been an accident. That day they had been arguing since early, so much that they didn't even join us for breakfast. It got to a point in which Lorraine stormed out of her room and was about to make her way down to the dining hall, but was intercepted by her mother who had chased after her. Bethzabel forcefully grasped Lorraine's arm and they struggled near the top of the staircase. I'm sure it's obvious what happened next.

She lost the use of her legs, and she was crippled from the waist down. The damage to her spine was so thorough not even the best physicians and staves could heal her. It was a miracle she even had motor functions in her upper half at all.

At least with the current level of medicine in this world, there isn't a treatment for this type of damage. Lorraine broke several nodes of her spine and damaged her nerves, and even though her bones and flesh could be healed, the damage to her nervous system is effectively irreversible.

We have been unable to see Lorraine, as she refuses to see any of us. I've pestered the maids to tell us what is going, and after enough repetition, I learned that she's barely eating and seems to be withering away.

We are at a loss of what to do. The kids of the same age as Lorraine do not truly know how to relate to her new situation, and because they haven't been let in to see her are worried sick. Camilla herself has been spacing out really hard these days too. Xander for his part has assumed his role as the eldest and put on his stoic mask once more, if only to offer us a form of stability. Norbert is the one that doesn't seem too bothered by anything, while Leo and Bismarck have been anxious and fidgety. Azura for her part wobbles between her usual somberness and the faintest of traces of worry.

The little ones don't understand it quite yet. Rosetta for her part only thinks that Lorraine is sick and needs to get better, while Lucas seems to be catching on that something is really wrong, though he's been surprisingly gentle when asking us. Marcus hasn't been notified and hasn't shown a single care yet, nor has he asked anything whatsoever and doesn't seem bothered by it. Xander has stopped me from telling him. My best guess is that he doesn't want Marcus running off his motormouth and screaming all of this to the 4 winds.

As for our dear father Garonstrud, well, he's not in Krakenburg. He's again dealing with whatever business he's got going somewhere in the frontiers, so right now we have been doing as Arete's been telling us. Preemptively, Bethzabel is under house/room arrest and the only other places she's allowed to visit are the bathroom and the infirmary.

She hasn't stepped into the infirmary once.

Xander was the only one that was given clearance to see her, and he had no luck. He was shooed out by Lorraine in a fit of screams, rage and all manner of thrown utensils. After that absolutely no one but the doctors and nurses have been entering.

As for our routines, we got back in track to train in the cold, but it's been harsh like I never thought was possible. For better or worse, we have numbed ourselves away from the physical cold. The training's no less brutal and Bernard hasn't allowed us any slack other than the one day Lorraine had her accident. I can see it in his eyes that he pities us, but also knows that we have even harsher times ahead. We are all worried what will Garon do once he returns.

Being completely clinical and detached, Lorraine has fully become worthless to Garon. She cannot fight anymore and she doesn't seem to have much strategical prowess either, and with how strained and stressed she is at the world, which I'm sure has only gotten worse in the past few days, only speaks of a horrible fate for her _when_ she's eventually brought to Garon.

…And I don't know it yet, but if the damage's been terrible enough, Lorraine may have just become unable to bear children too, which if it turns out to be true, rules her out for political marriages, which is a whole can of worms of its own. I have no way to know this at all, since her development's been kept guarded by the doctors, but I can't help but have that thought.

She may as well be a rotting sack of meat as far as Garon is concerned, and that is a thought that terrifies Xander and me. This is a situation I have absolutely no clue how to board either, as it never happened in my previous life, and also one that has taken Xander completely off guard, if his haunted expression is anything to go by, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, even if he's doing great at it.

Lorraine's accident is the reason we're all so gloomy in this New Year. Our father had made no effort to return for the celebrations (although that was mostly Lucas and Marcus, the rest of us were mostly indifferent, including Rosetta) and hadn't given us any time to expect his return, so we instead just… moved mechanically along with our lives, dreading and invisible clock that mercilessly ticked onward, unperturbed by us or our efforts and pleas.

Sometimes, we can only wait, even if it's the absolute worst kind of torture.

Even the concubines are whispering among themselves. Not counting Bethzabel, we still have a few more of them among us, and though they have the absolute minimum of a mockery of a soul left within their overgroomed flesh, Ornella and Rachael are already planning to take advantage of the situation somehow. Lorraine is by all means out of this morbid race for the crown, and it seems they are desperate enough to keep this despicable mindset.

I've talked to Xander about it, for once, and he's not happy with them either. He's promised me that if they do pull a ridiculous stunt, he's ready to bring down a metaphorical hammer on this bullshit.

I seriously can't believe that even with this terrible incident, after everything that's happened, those women are still treating this like a fucking race. I don't know if they're that consumed by greed or are just as despicable as that, probably both. Is their lust for that fucking throne that big? So big they're willing to thread over a crippled girl given the chance?

Nohr is truly a bizarre place. No wonder it's said it drains the sun out of you, that even if we try not to fall down with all we have, I often feel like something about this country will devour us whole before we even truly set foot in it.


	11. Glass Portraits

**A/N: I got some wonderful feedback on a Discord server I recently joined, and groomed the chapter into this version. If you want to read the old version, you can look it up in SpaceBattles (I crosspost this story there and in AO3 too, if you prefer those platforms). Can't link the old version here because of course, but if you're interested, you can look it up with this story's same title. Shoutouts to Verdin Grey for his feedback!**

**The contents are basically the same with _one_ minor correction that did need attention, but I don't think it affects the overall experience too much, so if you already read the original chapter, feel free to skip this rewrite if you're only itching for new events.**

* * *

**Track 11: Glass Portraits**

"I want all the women gone from this castle." Camilla had told us both, gathered in Xander's quarters during a chilly night after everyone else had gone to bed.

"…Only father can-" Xander reasoned, but was interrupted.

_"I want them all gone."_ Camilla repeated, growling like an enraged beast.

"Camilla," Xander's inflection became rougher. "I understand how you feel, but that decision is not up to us."

"Then whose is it!? Our dear absent father's!?" Camilla shrieked. "Our sister is crippled and that… that… that _bitch_ refuses to see her! It's been 2 months and she hasn't seen her _once_!"

"Not _one_ of us has seen Lorraine all this time other than you, Camilla, but don't you _dare_ imply we care less," Xander contested in a serene but firm tone. "You're not the only one who wants to do something."

"Do 'something´?" Camilla repeated in disbelief. "Do '_something_'!? What must that be, dear brother? Care to enlighten me? Perhaps it must be that they poison her? That she is stabbed when we're not looking? That-"

"Camilla, that's enough." I cut in, unable to fight back the horrible burning in my gut. Camilla looked at me with pure, unadulterated disgust, the most emotion she had ever directed to me in all of our lives.

"Lorraine cannot protect herself." Camilla laid out the uncomfortable truth. "We cannot even protect _ourselves_, and you're asking me to _wait_ when she's in such grave danger?"

We couldn't really rebuke her. Camilla fought back bitter tears, and with a scowl far too disturbing for her delicate features, she relentlessly carried.

"Do you have any idea of what it's like?" She said. "Lorraine will _never_ be able to leave these damn four walls!"

"You don't know that," Xander interjected. "And you're belittling her efforts. She's tougher than she looks."

"How _dare_ you speak so assuredly, Xander?" Our sister growled, sending him a hateful glare. "You have not seen her."

"That may be right," Xander confessed, keeping himself remarkably in line, but his emotions were indeed taking rise. "But I have faith in her. And having you sulk around with this anger is _not_ what she needs."

That actually made her flinch.

"Camilla," I called as assuredly as I could. "Right now you're the only one Lorraine can count on. Do you think all of us rushing to see her is what she wants? Do you remember the last time I tried to get in? I got a goddamn bucket to the face, and it's still swollen."

"Ignis, language." Xander complained, but I ignored him.

"What Lorraine needs now is not our pity. She needs our _support_, and as she is right now, we can only give it to her through _you._"

"HA!" Camilla laughed bitterly. "Speaking from experience, dear Ignis?"

Now _I _flinched, and felt myself trembling.

_"That is enough, Camilla!"_ Xander interjected. "It's become clear you're not in your best state of mind, and if this keeps up you're better off away from Lorraine until you calm down."

_"You wouldn't dare."_ She growled, eyeing him dangerously.

"I will, Camilla." Xander declared with finality. "Don't test me. There's been enough damage already, _do not make it worse._"

Camilla's tears finally broke free, and she looked at our eldest brother with a hurt look of utter betrayal.

"I thought… I thought you would understand. You of all people, Xander." She sobbed, and promptly fled from the room

"Camilla!" Xander called to no avail.

The following moments seemed to stretch to infinity, moments I spent standing dumbfounded.

The Camilla I grew up with was nothing like the person portrayed in the game, and she honestly never gave me much to make from her either. The Camilla I knew was an overly cautious and detached girl who didn't seek her brothers and sisters, outright avoiding fraternizing and always keeping a measure of distance from everybody around her, or at least it had been that way until recently…

"…Ignis?" I heard my brother's voice call for me.

"Y-Yes?" I replied ungainly.

"Please forgive Camilla. She's not in her full senses."

"It's… okay." I answered slowly.

"Is it truly, brother?"

I fought back my own frustration.

"No, it is not." I whimpered. But I cannot break down because of something as small as this, not yet, not like this. I guess the full damage hasn't sunk in yet, so I'd better do something before it does. "But this isn't what matters now. We need to get back to Camilla."

"She won't listen to us."

"Precisely because she won't listen" I stressed. "Xander, if we don't stop her now, Camilla may just do something she'll regret."

"What do you propose we do, then?" Xander pinched the bridge of his nose too.

"I don't know," I responded honestly, grasping my trembling shoulder with my right hand, I was still shaken. "But it's true that this can't remain as it is. We can't let father know of this, Xander."

"Now you're the one talking nonsense, Ignis." Xander sighed. "That is simply impossible."

It hurt hearing the truth from him. Then again, truth is usually a bitter pill to swallow.

"Xander, I know you don't like following the maids' gossip, but you do know what's been floating around, right?"

Xander gritted his teeth and closed his eyes.

"…Of course I do."

"What if it is too late after it happens?"

"We don't know it to be the truth, Ignis. We can't act without solid evidence."

"One push, Xander. A struggle and a single push is all that it took to leave Lorraine like this. It's true that leaving us like her is more trouble than outright killing us, but you know that the concubines won't stop at just that. A single push is all it took to stir this damn den of monsters."

"Ignis, do you really think I don't want to do something?" Xander's shell finally cracked. "Of course I want to protect our sister, but there is so much we can do! I've already done everything I can, I can't do more without causing more grief to father!"

I had to stop myself for a second there before exploding too, but then again, anger took ahold of me, and I said something I didn't mean.

"Xander, ask this of yourself: What is more important, Lorraine's life? Or your useless pride as the Crown Prince?"

He didn't seem angry at my blow, but he did reacquire his usual stone mask.

"Ignis, do you have any idea of what kicking out Bethzabel, Rachael or Ornella would mean?"

"Enlighten me."

I immediately did a double take for making such a basic mistake. Xander had to compose himself and proceeded to remind me of information I already knew.

"Bethzabel Amada Etreant is the 1st daughter of Consort Prometheus Samael Etreant, one of our most important traders in the southeast, the ones who supply not only Windmire, but also various small duchies and poor villages along the Dragonfort-Heartlands routes. They're one of the single most important people we have to transport and exchange our silver and artisanal wares for food to the poor villages along their routes. The Etreant family is home to the secrets to traverse the firelands with the most efficiency in _all_ of Nohr.

Rachael Joyuse is the 3rd daughter of Lilith Joyuse, the one woman who is by far the most powerful in Nohr without direct relation to the crown. Lilith Joyuse owns about 80% of the taverns in Windmire, and she supplies almost all of the inns and farms around the southwest before Armos. The only reason Lilith Joyuse's first and second daughters didn't marry to the crown is because they are by all means completely involved in the family business. Rachael being a concubine? That is just her own personal ambition's misaligning with her family's.

Ornella Pharos Lazuli, 2nd daughter of Viscount Geralt Hephaestus Lazuli, owner of 7 colonies of mines in the northwest, and the one who supplies most of the iron and steel used in the army. And not only that, the Lazuli family is one of the single most well renowned within the east, and their political support has saved the country many times over from civil wars."

I was completely destroyed by Xander's words. But he wasn't done just yet.

"If Bethzabel leaves this castle, we'll be losing a valuable trade route that will make _thousands_ starve.

If Rachael leaves this castle, the southwest will rise in protest and we'll lose Lilith's support to keep the trade alive to Armos, which will kill Glacies and Blackfrost in return.

If Ornella leaves this castle, we _will_ lose the Viscount's support, which is very important to the army, and if it happens badly enough, we may just fracture the national balance and be well on our way to an uprising."

Xander never once lost his composure completely during this exchange, though he was very close to it many times.

"Ignis, do you have any idea of what having a concubine die or leave this castle means every single time?"

I… I completely forgot about this. This was basic Nohrian economy 101! I had reviewed this information with Arete a long time ago!

"I… I just…" I whimpered.

"Ignis" He stopped me. "I will not blame you for this. I can't, not when you didn't know this. As the ones second and beyond in line, you do not truly understand the way Nohr works, and if I can help it, I will not let you have to become entangled in this web of lies and deceit."

"I'm sorry…"

"No offense taken, brother," Xander sighed in defeat. "The only reason I'm telling you this is that I know you understand these topics better than any of our brothers and sisters, maybe besides Leo, but he's too naïve to truly grasp the extent of what Nohr is."

Xander closed his eyes again, and became pensive, with his shoulders dropping a few centimeters.

"Ignis," He called for me once more. "I know you're smarter than you give yourself credit for, than you _pretend _to be; you're too clever for your own good, but you're also very short sighted in a lot of matters, matters which I know are certainly included in the curriculum of a politician and Prince."

I was unable to keep looking at him in the eye. Xander became silent for a while too, and eventually crossed his arms behind his back, trying to reassume his regal sternness.

"Please don't forget this, Ignis," Xander said. "No matter what happens, you still are a Prince of Nohr. No matter how much you may loathe this country, there are people counting on you, and not only in your family."

"I don't feel like I do enough for my family to begin with." I admitted. "Xander, up until Lorraine's accident, Camilla didn't even talk to me."

"I'm well aware." Xander agreed with a tired nod. "But if you having been called to this… meeting, as disastrous as it was, speaks volumes of the confidence Camilla has in you"

"Honestly, I often feel like Camilla is too somber" I voiced my thoughts. "She reminds me of Azura from before."

"…I can see where you're coming from," Xander brought a hand to his chin, and gave a pensive gaze to the window. "Camilla is too loyal for her own good. It's no surprise she's so torn on this matter."

"Loyal?" I quirked an eyebrow, more rhetorically than actually questioning. "…Do you think she's falling apart?"

"…I'm afraid that may be the case." My brother mirrored my thoughts. "Camilla's one of the oldest that remain, Ignis, and she's not that much different to you… or me."

I didn't need to hear what he referred to. We all sported the same type of grim face after all, the face of one that has killed kin. It was one of my earliest memories of Xander and Camilla, and I soon identified that same face in the mirror every morning after that day.

"If anything, Camilla is far more determined that us." I said, rubbing my brow tiredly. "Her daily visits to Lorraine have gone unstopped."

Xander didn't answer at that.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"Don't be. We all know it that she's been driving herself to the ground for all of this".

Day and night, Camilla visited Lorraine if she had the chance, without fail. She stood by her side and endured out littler sister's anger and sorrow.

Both of us remaining siblings remained quiet for a while. There still was much to do.

"Thank you, Xander."

"Anything for family, little brother."

Xander wasn't the type to show affection with physical gestures, but one day… one day I hope he'll let someone pamper him as he deserves.

* * *

Later that week, I found myself in front of a door I wasn't sure I wanted to be nearby. It was nighttime, long past our curfew, but having received the announcement that Garon was just a few days away from Krakenburg I wanted to talk to Camilla. So here I was, standing like a dumb wyvern in front of her room. Camilla hadn't deigned any words to me or Xander after her outburst a few days ago, and her bitterness only grew once she couldn't see Lorraine any longer; Xander had assigned guards outside the infirmary with strict orders of not letting Camilla in.

I wanted to talk to Camilla, though I wasn't sure what so say to her, or if she even wanted to hear me, but I had to try nonetheless.

My hand trembled, and though I raised it to the black wooden door, I couldn't bring myself to knock on it. It wasn't that I was angry at Camilla, but I just didn't know what to tell her. I just knew I needed to see her, but the words escaped me. After knowing how precarious the situation was with the concubines, I just couldn't bring myself to offer my support to Camilla wholeheartedly, but at the same time, I knew I just couldn't stand doing nothing. Not being able to see Lorraine was crushing Camilla, but just seeing the former fueled the latter's rage. It was a no win situation, and although Xander's solution wasn't ideal, it was better than just going on like it had been going.

As for me, it technically boiled down to picking the selfish choice or the one that didn't quench my anger. I could see no middle ground at least in this situation, no middle ground and no correct answer. The only thing I knew is that I hated seeing my sisters suffer, but I couldn't forsake my eldest brother and his efforts either.

Fucking diplomacy sucks, man.

I wanted justice for Lorraine, and the gossip going on said that either Rachael or Ornella were planning to finish the job. For some reason or another, I had foolishly hoped that even if we could not rid ourselves of the concubines, they'd at least respect the status quo until Xander became 16.

That was a pipe dream, of course. I had grown so accustomed to the insane training and being so drained mentally that I thought I could have a respite and just try to focus on my original mission, the one I imposed upon myself.

Somewhere along the way, the line started becoming blurry, and Lorraine's accident was a horrible reminder that I couldn't rest yet.

But then… why did it feel so wrong having to take this step? Have I truly become so attached to this mockery of a "life" that I can't bring myself to act? Or is it that knowing that taking this step will truly have repercussions for once? That those repercussions will truly haunt me?

...When will enough be enough? When the concubines die? When the war truly starts? When only the canon 4 are alive?

I'm reminded again that the things each of us siblings want to protect are different. They do overlap in some places and corners, but ultimately, even if we are looking in the same general direction, we're not truly looking at the same destination. Xander is torn between family and duty, Camilla is torn between justice and family, while I'm floating in between many sides, trying to make sense of a world I don't truly understand and searching for answers no one can give me.

"Do you have any business with my daughter, Prince… Ignis was it?" I am taken out of my thoughts abruptly.

"Good evening… Lady Alraune…"

I turn around to see a known face, one I despise. I am greeted by none other than Alraune van Ross, Camilla's mother, garbed in a thick robe and carrying that air of superiority I had always attached to her. Her violet eyes were colder than ice, and though her beautiful features were kept completely unblemished and neutral in expression, I couldn't help but feel disgust fill me.

"I asked you a question, Prince Ignis." She repeated herself. Her tone was by all means neutral and even cordial to some degree, but I could feel the creeping thorns under her rosey exterior.

"Yes, I have." I responded, unknowingly switching gears into full caution. I could feel my heartbeat accelerating and my throat protesting against me, but I couldn't show weakness in front of this beautiful monster.

"I'm afraid it is too late tonight, Prince." She dismissed me. "I'm sure you can… speak to her during the morning."

"I'm afraid it is important, it cannot wait." I reflexively bit back, perhaps the single most stupid reaction I could have made. I forced myself to keep my screams to myself.

"Oh?" Her expression never changed, remaining as a full mask of disinterest. "Pray tell, what is it so important that it cannot wait for tomorrow? Even so when you're denying me from seeing my own daughter?"

"How interesting that you say that. What business do _you_ have that it cannot wait for tomorrow either?"

Oh sweet Naga, someone stop me!

"My, Prince Ignis," Her lips shift to a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "Hasn't your mother taught you not to pry on a lady's business?"

This bitch…!

"My etiquette is impeccable, I'm glad you asked, so please let me procure you cover, Lady Alraune. These February nights are chilly for the elder."

I saw her crack one _absolutely vicious _smile.

"My, aren't you one _sweet_ _little **mama's** boy_?" She spoke with a honey-laced voice.

All right, bitch, **_you're on_**.

"By all means, please help a poor old lady like myself. I'd be _delighted_ to have a man as capable as you _assist me_, in fact, why don't you accompany me right now for a _private talk_? I may not be as good company as our _dear_ Queen, but I have confidence in my… _conversational_ skills."

"I'm afraid I'll have to decline, madam." I replied with a sad smile. "I really need to talk to Camilla. But if you really have to talk to her, by all means please go in yourself first. _I'll just wait right here._"

A heavy silence washed over the corridor, and the only thing that broke this uncomfortable silence were the cracking embers of the torches dotting the stone walls.

"Are you sure about that, Princey?" Dear lord what a disturbing smile! "I might take a while. I have some… _confidential_ matters to discuss with my daughter."

"My, what a coincidence! I also have important things to discuss with her! Pray tell, is it related to our little sister by any means?"

She flinched. Gotcha, bitch!

"My, of course not! How could a lady as _proper_ and _refined_ like yourself be bothered with a poor girl who cannot even leave her room? Oh, no! Please give me another chance!"

She opened her mouth to speak, but I interrupted her before she even had a chance to utter a word.

"Don't tell me! I have it this time!" I gave an overly forced smile, an _evidently_ forced smile. "Do you perhaps wish to warn your daughter about those _horrendously foul_ rumors going around?"

Her brow actually furrowed.

"Please, do go ahead. _I myself_ _do not really believe baseless rumors like those_, but… you can never be too careful, right? With how things are getting around these places, it can never hurt to have eyes on your back, wouldn't you agree, _Lady Alraune_?"

She gave a cruel smile, but I wasn't done just yet.

"Perhaps I should follow my own advice, wouldn't you agree, Lady Alraune? Hmm?" her smile had outright grown _dangerous_ now "Oh please, don't give me such an adorable look! I appreciate your concern, but I'll be fine! I've survived _alone_ all this time, so what's a li'l bit of gossip gonna do to me? Not much, I'll tell you!"

Alraune seemed to be actually _enjoying_ this exchange.

"What a lively _child_ you are, Prince Ignis." She chuckled maliciously. "I'm glad to see that Camilla has such a dependable _half-_brother."

"Well now! I'm a firm believer that two halves make a better whole, especially in this case, Lady Alraune!" I'm sure I positively _gleamed_ at that moment, while her smile kept growing predatorily.

She seemed to run out of ammo at that, because she didn't say anything else.

"…Allow me to retract myself, Prince Ignis." She said, still with that disturbing smile plaguing her face. "I believe my business with my daughter can wait for another time, I just remembered I do have some important… _adjustments_ to make to my schedules now. By all means feel free to visit Camilla. I won't intrude you any longer."

She gave me the faintest of curtsies and turned her way.

Right before she was out of earshot, I gave my last push.

"Good night, Lady Alraune. And thank you in advance."

She turned her still smiling face to me. "Oh, what for?"

"Oh, don't worry, Lady Alraune.

**_You will know soon enough._**"


	12. Storm Calling

**Track 12: Storm Calling**

Another late February night saw me skulking around the hallways of Krakenburg. I approached my destination with heavy steps, and knocked on the door. I knew Xander wouldn't be asleep yet; he rarely went to bed early even as a prepubescent kid, though I rarely did either, if me being there said anything. A knocking later, Xander's unarmored form greeted me, still garbed in a dress shirt and silk pants, but verily much not ready for bed yet. I spied his desk lit by a single lamp, full of documents which he was surely studying.

"Good evening, brother" Xander eyed me suspiciously. "To what do I owe this late night visit?"

"Got something to show you." I replied, lifting the small stack of papers under my arm. "May I come in?"

Xander wordlessly pushed himself to a side and gestured me to go in, and I followed through with quiet steps. I had walked all the way from my room to his, which were quite apart, actually, as mine lied on the far west wing while Xander's was nearer the central tower. Once I was in, I Xander made a spot in his desk, where I dropped my documents.

"Do you have a tray or something to burn paper on?" I asked him.

"I do… Ignis, what is this?"

My eldest brother took wary steps towards the papers I had brought in, all while giving me the expected quizzical look. I prodded him to check one with a wave of my hand, and he reluctantly took the first of various compilations of documents, the result of many sleepless nights and grunt work. His eyes narrowed sharply once he skimmed not too deep into the compilation.

"Blackmail" I said gracelessly once his understanding was reflected on his face.

"…And why do you have such… _documents_ with you?"

"Let's just say I've been doing extra homework."

My eldest brother pinched his brow.

"Ignis, where-"

"We both know the answer to that question, but please do not finish it either way."

"It should have been obvious in hindsight. I knew, but I refused to accept it. Your horrid sleeping habits, your relation with her, the advanced classes…" My older brother sighed. "Is this it? _This_ is your plan?"

"A vital component of it," I replied as neutrally as I could. "Or better said, the main one, actually."

"Ignis, by-"

"By law this is inadmissible in court, I know. The original ones were both obtained and reproduced illegally, and should by no means be in my possession." I cut him in. "Not to mention these balances, records, and even some signatures have been adjusted."

"You've-!?" Xander was completely dumbstruck, one of the expressions I had rarely seen in all of my 9 years of second life. "You've actually _tampered _official, private records!?"

"The original ones are untouched, and it's a work in progress," I hurried. "I think that out of the hundred or so files we have, only about five or seven are spotless, so nothing is ready whatsoever. I… _we _identified and grouped the information as best as we could so long it was assets that couldn't be traced back, simple stuff like minor unrecorded purchases that on their own wouldn't bat an eye, but nobles are too relaxed in how that money is spent, so it was just a matter of-"

"Adjusting the balances in those gaps to your liking. If the assets cannot be traced, no one can tell if that money was really spent like how the records say, since there is nothing to back those claims." Xander completed for me. "A simple and effective method if greatly time consuming, to not say mind-numbing, one that with smart handling could be used to attribute the expenses to whoever or whatever you desire so provided you played it smartly and built some form of history to associate it to"

"…One of our main weaknesses in infrastructure… now more than ever that money is flowing in every direction imaginable with Garon focusing all of his efforts and attention on the army… He cannot possibly keep track of everything." I said with gritted teeth, anxious at how Xander would react.

"Ignis… Give me one good reason to not arrest if not banish you right now for robbery, defamation and falsifying government records right now." Xander seemed like he wasn't sure whether to hyperventilate or tear the documents in his arms.

"I can give you three better." I replied. "One is that these are copies based on outdated info, the good ones are far better cleaned up and further secured, two, I have even _more_ than this, certainly not for the whole Court whatsoever but still enough to cause a significant political catastrophe, I'm not lying when I say I have about a hundred different files, and three, you may possibly need this even more than I do."

"Queen Arete and you… " Xander didn't need to finish that sentence.

"The problem I have, Xander, is that I cannot use this information, or at least not myself, not without causing one of the biggest shitstorms to come to Windmire, no- maybe all of the central lands that will only get Arete in trouble, even more than she already is."

"Trouble is the understatement of the decade, Ignis!" Xander for once ignored my crude language. "You've… how could you? Do you have no scruples or shame!?"

"I'm sorry…"

"No, you're not!" Xander was almost enraged. "Ignis, if father finds out about this, you're going to get yourself executed!"

"I don't expect you to use this information, or at the very least not yet, but I want you to know it exists." I hurried. "The other night I just went and antagonized Alraune because _of course_, and now I'm about to stir the sharks once more."

"Don't tell me…!"

"Our latest records are from 3 weeks ago, and our spies-"

"Of _course_ you have them patrolled" Xander didn't even seem that perturbed.

"That's not even the biggest crime, and you know there are spies everywhere; even ninja from Hoshido roam undetected in the streets and a few hover near the castle, heck, I suspect we might even have a few posing as servants, but that's beside the point."

Xander gave me a reluctant look of disapproval, but thankfully decided not to contest that point.

"I don't know for certain, but I believe there's a high chance that at the very least Ornella has hired someone. It at least lines up with her most recent movements. There was a recent withdrawal of about 50 thousand golden coins that she never spent anywhere we could trace, and though we've been having complications to obtain last month's closing records I'm sure we can guess where such a strong sum was surely spent."

"Ornella surely covers her tracks well". Xander's eyes kept darting between the spreadsheets I had created and me. "Besides, I don't think I am reading this information correctly."

"That's because it's my own method of accounting." I said shadily. Mother of Naga, who would've thought I'd _actually_ put that knowledge to use of all things? Why couldn't I have learned how to make actual paper? Fucking parchment is a bitch to handle. "It's a bit hard to follow, but I have created a small identification system to categorize movements based mostly on biotics and miscellaneous spending you can ignore, but it gets juicy when you go under the unidentified section, umm… Aw nuts, where did I leave it…?"

I had to take a dive at the papers, rustling through various scrolls, but I eventually found out what I was looking for. I handed Xander a parchment that contained a crude sorting table that was meant to be used as the reference for the other documents. Xander soon began catching up.

"Important movements, as well as our adjustments are marked accordingly. Afterwards each set of columns compares the bank's records with our uh… illegally obtained ones, and the last column is the result. That's why the numbers keep piling so drastically. Also, we have letters and bills, but I didn't bring any of those, those are kept elsewhere under lock and key."

He caught up after a bit.

"These… I'm assuming the… stars?" He eyed the numbers critically.

"Asterisks" I supplied.

"Is that what you call them?" I nodded at this question. "These are your adjustments?"

"Actually no, those are their own misgivings."

I could feel Xander do a metaphorical collapse, the spreadsheet was almost 2/3 full of asterisks after all.

"Uh, sorry if the numbers are a bit hard to read. These are my own drafts, and I kinda rushed through the transcription to make these for you, and you know how I am with the abacus, so there might just be a couple thousand coins of error."

"No." I could beat dollars to donuts Xander wasn't sure what he was denying either. Thankfully, even through my hieroglyphs, I could see him running the math in his mind, and it was just dawning on him that I wasn't wrong per se. "A 'couple'? By the Dusk Dragon, Ignis, these might as well sum up various tens of thousands!"

"For Ornella and Rachael though? Not quite enough to warrant an arrest for the type of money they usually manage." I said dejectedly. "This might as well be pocket change for them."

Xander pinched the bridge of his nose, and I could swear that his eye bags grew bigger.

"Ignis, I have four questions for you."

"Four?" I replied ungainly at the highly specific number, receiving a disapproving look in return. "Okay."

"First. Can you swear on our brothers and sisters' names, that this information is veridic, your own adjustments notwithstanding?"

"Yes, but to be fair I can't say that for what we've built in good conscience." I admit. "The volumes of adjustments are a bit different for everyone, so I have to admit we cut corners a bit in some places to make some cases more harmful where we could, especially for Alraune, since she's the one who keeps her finances the most guarded, we couldn't get much of her. It's why I said that this is not ready. More adjustments need finer covering after all."

He nodded slowly, which I took as my cue to continue.

"Preliminarily, that spreadsheet I made can technically give you an overview of what the numbers would look without our adjustments for November and December and the first 3 weeks of January, though you'd have to do the subtractions accordingly and do some tax punching, which we both know will be a nightmare. It does paint one hell of a picture though, that I can assure. As for their precedence, we are sure of the crests we found."

"Language." Xander grunted. "Second. Why are you showing me this?"

I bit my lip.

"Because even though I could never use this information officially, I still can use it in other means, however, with that said, the true reason I want to show you this is that you're my insurance, Xander, to put it bluntly."

"Explain yourself." He hissed with a dangerous tone.

"All right... All right…" I was running on fumes. "I know that you're planning to ask me _what_ do I plan to do with this information, and it relates to why I'm showing you this."

It took all of my willpower to look at him in the eye.

"Xander, I'm going to use this information to blackmail them. Use it as a deterrent to either keep them in line or ideally, make them destroy each other."

"How do you plan on doing so?" Xander's eyes were drilling a hole through my skull at that point.

"I can't just go ahead and show this information to them. That'd just put me on their targets and give them one single thing to get rid of. Numbers and letters can do so much on their own, and to be honest, we are still lacking in more physical evidence to paint them completely as enemies of Nohr."

"…You will falsely accuse them of treason?"

"Last resort." I said grimly, with no humor, no nonsense nor quirky snark present on my voice anymore. "I will draw a line, Xander. And I'm completely sure they're going to trespass it and cause a lot of shit if they find out what is really going on. They're dumb enough to take advantage of anything that they think will give them an edge in this madness, so if I mix up who gets which info _and let them know the others have it_, it may just work."

"You're laying a dangerous trap, Ignis." Xander warned me sternly. "If they do find where this information is coming from, which is by all means a real possibility, you will turn this whole castle upside down, and that's not to say what will echo outside."

Xander's face contorted in phantom pain.

"Which is why you want them to worry about something bigger in their minds: Each other" He reasoned. "You're betting on them pulling back in fear of others breaking this balance. The state of affairs is already precarious, and if a killer's already been hired, it's a march against the clock. How did you even come with such an answer?"

"If I'm going to lose Lorraine, I'm going to make sure they lose everything as well."

"Ignis, we already talked about this."

"Xander, I know I might get myself killed in this stunt." I replied sternly. "But I can't- I _won't_ sit in the sidelines before this escalates further. I can't stop thinking at every single time that if I stand still… that if I don't do anything I can to prevent more deaths among us, it will haunt me for the rest of my days."

"I don't expect you to forsake any of us, Ignis." Xander agreed. "But I cannot accept this method."

"What else do you propose, then?" I sighed. "Are you telling me you can prevent Lorraine's death? We all know we can't trust anyone in this castle, so don't even think about delegating this to someone else, there's been enough poisonings and slit throats already."

Xander stopped cold, his lips pursing into a tense line. He took a deep breadth of his own and looked at me squarely. I met his gaze defiantly.

"I… admittedly have been trying to get the concubines away from this castle for years now in my own terms." Xander gave me his back and took steady steps towards the bookshelf in front of his bed. He retired a set of books from the third shelf and ran his hand through the planks, and soon enough he slid the ledge to a side, and pulled out a set of documents from a hidden compartment.

He has been doing his homework too.

He took one of the various small worn books with faded leather covers and opened it, and after he leafed through the beginning and skipped to the end, he closed it again and handed it to me.

"…What is this?" I parroted his words from earlier.

"My own research notes." He told me grimly. As I skimmed over the old pages, which almost protested at my eager touch, I found out a rather detailed chronicle of events about the concubines, their daily routines, their contacts, their relationships and standing among the various members of the court, among much more. Neatly organized like everything Xander did, much unlike my own mess of notes, lines, numbers and figures. The book I was looking at in particular featured events from last year.

"If you have all this much information…" I told him. "Why haven't you done something?"

"Because I never did something as bold as illegally acquiring their personal finances nor ever counted on you doing it to build a case as big as yours, nor could I make request out of it without giving a very good reason to father."

Urk.

"You're telling me you never really sent spies on them? Are you serious?"

"Of course, but not one single person in this castle is as close to the Queen as you, Ignis, outside of maybe Azura. Nor as foolish, it clearly seems." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And every single time I asked for this type of information from a third party it just led me to dead ends. I knew I wouldn't be able to trust the information I obtained were I to ask for it upfront either."

Of course, Crown Prince and all that jazz. If he were to ask for something like that, he'd just be causing too much commotion.

"I'll work with you." I told him earnestly. "Xander, your information from the Court is _amazing_; put it together with ours and you basically have the whole nobility of Nohr recorded."

"Nothing remotely as close as that." Xander dismissed my flattery. "Why haven't _you_ kept closer tabs in the Court is what surprises me. Besides, you told me yourself your own information is incomplete."

"Xander, for crying out loud. I'm _third_ in line and absolutely every noble in Court _despises_ Arete. No one takes the kid seriously and no one wants to talk to the Queen, so we couldn't trust them, besides, I've mostly focused on the concubines and actually bringing the information together, as neither her nor I trust anyone to handle this information."

Xander gave a bitter laugh in what I assumed was a form of twisted amusement of our mirrored situations.

"I hate to ask again." He said slowly. "But are you sure on the veracity of your records?"

"Xander, you wouldn't believe how lax and unguarded our own records are." I told him. "If it's not gold, not even the accountants give a damn with how busy they are assuring Garon the weapons are coming along, so I had a free ticket to do this, though it wasn't fun. For them it's paper first and foremost, it's why there's a lot of insider trading, embezzlement and frauds, but you know better than anyone what a single signature can mean."

"Embezzlement?" He eyed me warily.

Aw snap, I'll need to introduce Xander to the finer details of financial crimes too, won't I? Fucking medieval times, get on with the times! Or don't, I fucking hate politics… Ugh. I had to introduce the concepts to Arete in the first place too, and though there _are_ notions and actual punishments for these type of crimes, they aren't well defined.

…For this one, if I can, I'll just lay the groundwork, I think.

"We can leave that for another time." I tried to dodge the issue, and Xander thankfully followed though he didn't seem pleased.

"They wouldn't believe a child as young as you to be able to make sense of such information…"

I gave a strained, awkward smile.

"Xander, will you _please_ work with me?" I pleaded him. "I'm willing to give you every bit of information I have down to the last number, hell, I'll see through that the documents we stole are put back in their places if you want to, but don't tell me you don't have use for our information."

"I…" Xander hesistated. "I don't believe that to be sensible, Ignis."

"What? Why?"

"I can't on principle." He said. Shit. "I admit your information could prove vital to my own, but… if father ever finds out…"

"Xander, break the rules for once in a while." I told him defiantly. "I know I'm making it seem you're making a deal with the devil, but please, trust me. I'll do everything I can to compile back the true state of finances if you so desire, it'll be shooting ourselves in the foot down the line, but if that's what it takes, I'll do it. My info will make yours stupidly solid!"

"I…" Xander bit his lips. "I will think about it."

Fuck. Not good enough.

"Three days, Xander. I'll stick to Camilla and Lorraine like glue, though they'll surely break me some bones." I said. "I'll give you three days to think about it, after that you'll have to arrest me before I start divulging my information among the concubines if you don't agree to work with me, or if they don't get me or Lorraine before."

"You haven't talked to Camilla?" He eyed me in mild surprise.

"After my little exchange with her mother? I had to scurry the hell back to my room before the nerves killed me. I still don't know what I want to tell her, honestly, but after the act was done I was so manic I would have only made things worse if I actually talked to her." I told him gracelessly. "I still want to talk to her, but I needed to have this talk with you first, before this upcoming storm comes."

"I see." He told me simply, still bewildered at everything. "I must admit that I didn't expect you to be this… _stubborn_, but I guess it goes to show that you're determined to save our sister."

"Determination and stubbornness aren't necessarily synonyms, least in this case." I admitted, and had to take a moment to compose myself. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you that war _will_ break out some time in the future, and if I don't have all of you at my side when the time comes, I will not be able to face it."

Xander took a moment again, and looked at the bunch of papers I had brought in. I saw his fingers twitch, as he deliberated whether to check the papers or not.

Time seemed to stand still for the both of us, as my whole body trembled with cold goosebumps. I… admittedly felt dirty at forcing Xander to make this choice. I knew he was a stickler to the rules and despised those who had no ethics or honor, a line which I was beginning to dip in in his eyes, heck, he could actually know I didn't give a damn about them too, but consciously turned a blind eye. For all of his righteousness, Xander was admittedly inflexible, and in my eyes, that rigidness brought both strengths and weaknesses, because sometimes doing the right thing goes against the rules.

"I'll think about it. I will seriously do." Xander finally caved in as his hand reached for one of my rolled scrolls, which he pointed at me. "But don't you dare do anything stupid."

"I already am doing something stupid." I admitted. "But I'll hold on from making any more 'bold' moves until I hear from you."

"Good. Now get out of here before I change my mind." Xander sighed irritably. "You've just given me more work to check."

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

"Guilty as charged."

"Very funny." Xander heaved irritably. "I haven't said yes yet."

"'Yet'."

"Dusk Dragon, you're being insufferable tonight, brother."

"Xander, thanks."

"Don't push me further, Ignis." Xander growled. "And you're welcome, even if I don't like this."

"Perfect. I'll let you keep these and the key sheet I made for you to understand what my crude ciphers mean, but I hope you burn them when you're done with them."

"Of course, Ignis. This isn't the time I've handled delicate information." The crown prince shook his head sternly. I could see him deliberating everything he had just heard. "Before you go, Ignis. I still have one last question for you."

Right, he had four questions for me. Xander rolled the parchment again and neatly laid it among its comrades, and after that he silently made his way right in front of me, and looked squarely in the eye. He was taller than me by a good head and a half, surely due to our age difference, but standing here, in front of him, I truly felt tiny.

"…How come you… _do _all this?" He asked me.

"What do you mean?" I asked slowly. I didn't need more misunderstandings tonight.

Xander didn't answer immediately, standing silently for a few seconds to ponder how to proceed. His shoulders tensed, and I could see his eyes burning fiercely even though the room was shrouded in the darkness of midnight. He curled his admittedly tiny hands into fists, and faced me once more.

I almost felt ashamed at not being able to match his conviction, unable to answer immediately, as I searched for an answer that didn't sound as ridiculous as 'So hey, turns out I'm a fuckup of an adult pretending to be a kid who killed another kid. Go figure', and it's in moments like these that the disconnect of being Xander just 11 years old and my complete lack of illustriousness shines all the more evidently.

Because I still don't really know how to relate to him in this level, nor really anyone in this world. I don't think I can ever relate on this or ever will completely, on the amount of guilt I feel at looking at my face every morning, of seeing Victor's face looking behind my shoulder in the mirror, of knowing that one of those empty seats in the dining hall is empty because of me. I can barely read the glyphs of the Thunder tome I'm just beginning to grasp without having that phantom memory of the praise he received. Xander had the right to make errors, for he was truly a kid, and children simply don't have the experience to play everything perfectly.

As for me? I will have to keep arguing that having been Shanghai'd into this setting of all things might have been the single worst experience for someone like me, tiny and non-transcendental in the whole scheme of things, because if I don't, and I let myself be swayed around by the events around me, then what even am I?

After all, if I can't even remember my previous name, do I have the right to call myself that person? If I can't truly remember the people who once were the dearest to me, what is left but a bunch of information and experiences to sloppily parse into this body? Can I even say those memories are 'mine'? Are they Ignis', or that stranger I used to be?

"I can barely keep going, but I don't find much else to do- no, I don't _have_ anything else to do." Both in the past, and in the present. "Because it might be displaced, but I feel like I'm obligated to try and protect the others from becoming like us, and give them just one chance to _live_."

"In place of our fallen?"

Guilt is one hell of a poison, after all.

"In place of our fallen."


	13. One for One

**Track 13: One for One**

The final week of February rolled in with an eerie whisper and an expected and also fulfilled promise of pain. It had been two days since my talk with Xander, and I had kept to my word with my best efforts since, hovering near Camilla and Lorraine as much as I could while earning the ire of both in the process; Camilla for her part scorned my presence and avoided me as much as she humanly could, while Lorraine didn't really talk to me; I didn't really "spend" time with her as much as I brought my Tomes to her room (she had been moved back recently) and sat on a desk in the corner while furthering my own work; Lorraine didn't talk much to me, though I had actually seen her cracking a bit recently, or at that was my optimism speaking at the absolute least.

On another hand, Bernard began this week with sparring sessions among us after our usual laps around the field, some more stretches and finally the weapon exercises. We were assigned patners which would be changing members regularly. As of now we had changed partners a few times already, with the current match-ups having Leo paired with Bismarck, Azura with Gunther, Xander with Norbert, and finally Camilla with yours truly.

Great. Except not. The day was about to end, and I was pretty much completely done for.

These actual training matches among us had been a rather recent addition to our drills, and were meant to test our mettle amongst each other. Bernard and Gunther were by all means the most powerful combatants among us, but neither of them skimped nor relented, though they did their best to actually teach a bit rather than outright thrash us (they did thrash us regularly anyway). There's nothing better than applying your knowledge on the field, right?

Sidestep and stab. My attack is parried. Damn. Pull back immediately before a counter.

Camilla grunted irritably and hopped back as well, pointing her blade diagonally up from the hip in a standard guard, with both hands firmly holding the hilt of her dulled Bronze Sword and her legs perfectly arched. She didn't give me any respite, pulled her hands slightly to her left and charged again with a powerful horizontal slash, which I preemptively dodged with yet another retreating step combined with my own sword intercepting hers, but my sister didn't concede and followed up with a rising diagonal slash, which I was forced to deflect with my buckler rather ineffectively, with my fingers and wrist protesting at the impact; I didn't have time to object to the pain nor really a reason to, so instead I managed to score one good hit on Camilla's gut when inertia took ahold of her and gave me an opening. My sister bent over slightly to a side with gritted teeth.

"You little…!" She growled. "Stop skirting like a coward!"

I ignored her outrage and bashed with my shoulder before finally scoring yet another good hit on her sides, all while hiding the pain of my aching left hand under a mask of cold serenity… or as serene as I could between ragged breaths and silent whimpers. I was exhausted after 4 matches to the best of 3 on top of the drills. I had been matched against Leo, Bismarck and Gunther already, and thankfully it didn't seem like I would need to make a last stand against Norbert or Xander, thank fuck. Everything hurt, from the muscles to the hairtips, and the least said about my performance, the better.

"Did you really think I would just… stand there and take it…?" I retorted humorlessly. "You're too strong for me to take head-on… and you know it."

"Tch! Not only with magic, you also use the sword like a coward." She spat venomously as she gathered her bearings once more.

"If it works, it works..." I sighed tiredly, stretching and cracking the fingers of my left hand behind my buckler, which I point towards my sister to hide them.

"It's on!" She jumped back into the fray again.

I _had_ to do train with Camilla like this. Her physical strength had been growing monstrously throughout the years, and I was pretty sure that in a pure physical contest, she could even give Xander and Norbert both a run for their money; however, even if she had such monstrous strength, she was still lacking in many areas, such as keeping her head cool in combat. But with me tired as I was, the playing field just stacked worse against me.

Camilla charges with a vertical cleave, which I sidestep to my right and try to counter in the gap, and I realize my mistake just an instant soon enough to avoid being slashed at the feint by awkwardly pulling my buckler towards my stomach. Insanely, the parry works yet again, and I have to make a mad dash to create distance, dash which Camilla doesn't let me make as she pursues me like a swooping bird of prey.

Though she really had the stamina to match anyone, there was so much she could do when her aim was all over the place. Xander was still peerless and undefeated by all of us siblings, Camilla being no exception; our eldest had an impregnable defense and the skill to overcome the gap in strength by meeting Camilla's charges head-on, disarming her at her own game each and every time, with the occasional improvisations doing no good. Then again, Xander was Xander, and I certainly wasn't Xander, so when it came to me, I had to play hit and run and always keep my toes about myself, because if she scored one single good hit it would be over, I have a lot of bruises to my name to prove that.

Occasions just like these.

My face met the ground after a rather nasty pang against my shin that made me stagger, which Camilla dialed together with a hit to my left bicep way above the buckler, followed with a kick to my ankle to finish opening me up, and one final thrust to the chest that took the air out of my lungs and made me collapse, all in one nasty combination. Bernard ordered her to stop beating my miserable self before she jumped in for the overkill, command she thankfully obeyed.

After having overcome the fear of getting hurt (something I still struggled on), it was a matter of leading the pace of the duel and make Camilla unknowingly follow along, one dangerous gamble to play towards every single time, which like right now, often ended in me taking severe damage from a single hit which then spiraled down into a flurry of additional pain (that rained down with a lot of interest). I'm sure she sprained my wrist, ring and pinky fingers at the very least with the slash I parried with my buckler with the earlier exchanges, but nothing got seemingly dislocated yet. The difference in a physical contest had become all the more apaprent recently, with Camilla already displaying her brutal disposition for battle, disposition I still hadn't been able to match nor hoped to replicate anytime soon. Camilla was by all means the most relentless of all of us and unmatched in that area.

If things go like this, she'll truly become some sort of beast at some point. I had to be truly smart to not get squashed by her, as even then she still beat me 7 out of 10 matches every time like just now, magical duels included.

Fucking Iago displaying those records to the four winds. Hate you too.

A maid came over to me with bandages on a tray, and after inspecting my left hand, she wordlessly snapped my fingers back in place with a swift movement. I don't even get the chance to grunt, because as soon as the twisting ended, she showered me with the soothing light of the Heal staff. Ouch.

The ground seemed awfully comfy right for a moment there…

It's actually a bit interesting knowing that Camilla and I have similar talents. The both of us practiced both physical and magical combat, with her showing a disposition for Axes and myself to Lances, though Bernard hadn't allowed me to truly embrace the "jack-of-all-trades" approach I wanted to take for myself as I was to follow my training regimen one step at a time, no shortcuts, so I couldn't feasibly wield both magic and a weapon at the same time at my level ( didn't really have the skill to keep track of both either), so it's safe to say I wouldn't be pulling a Robin anytime soon, and even then, Bernard had forbidden me from disregarding my sword training completely, because I must be ready to wield Siegfried at any point and all that jazz. The saving grace was that I actually had a little bit more magical firepower compared to my sister, while she had a much better physical condition, so in the end I was a better rounded fighter.

Note that being better rounded didn't necessarily mean a better fighter overall, hence me having a fistful of dirt in my mouth and a bruised ego at the moment. She'd been particularly relentless in these past few days, but since today she actually has the chance to retaliate, well…

Hello darkness, my old friend…

Today was also the very last day I'll wait for Xander's answer, and they've been absolutely soul crushing. For the first time since Victor's death, Xander's cold mask has been all I've seen him direct at me, and though he's been perfectly cordial, so far he's deflected every single attempt for us to talk about the situation, and I've been understandably frustrated about it, as you could imagine.

Being near Camilla and Lorraine while neither of them want me around at all has been understandably horrible as well, which resulted in the former's cranky going worse state and quite a lot of stress for the both of us. I've been terribly stubborn of not losing sight of either, so it's just been a bad time overall. Neither of them wants me around and I am going fully against those desires. Add that on top of exhaustion, overall stress and lack of sleep and you get one cranky Ignis.

"I want a rematch. Magic this time."

Camilla further reaffirmed her disdain.

"…Come again?"

She shot me quite the dangerous glare and the most indescribable of smiles I had seen from her yet, which served as a reminder me that she indeed was Alraune's daughter. She dusted her leather armor and brought her Grimoire out without waiting for anyone's approval, fingers _itching_ to start blasting me off with the elements of nature. My sister was by all means not done yet and quite literally ready to rumble.

All to hurt me with extreme prejudice of course. Well… maybe extreme is exaggerated, but she absolutely _did_ want to hurt me.

Bernard meanwhile contemplated the idea, his fingers twirling around his ridiculous moustache. I'm sure he spent more time on his moustache that he did grooming any other part of his person.

"Do you have any objections, Ignis?" He asked for my approval, quite surprisingly.

"…Come again, Master Bernard?" I produced a sound that was somewhere between a hurt whale and an agonizing housecat in return.

"Boy, I asked a simple question." Bernard shrugged humorlessly.

"I mean, I heard you loud and clear, but…" My eyes danced unsurely towards my sister. "Isn't the rematch the loser's-"

"What is it, _big brother_?" Camilla mocked me, calling the title with sarcasm and breaking the figurative dam. "Can't take the heat?"

Neither of us quite enunciated the following.

_"__This is for Xander and Lorraine, isn't it?"_

_"__For that and much more."_

I gulped. Fight or flight, it'll end being a shitfest either way.

"Nope." I denied. "Not doing this."

Bernard shot me a disapproving glare.

"Is that so?" He sighed rhetorically.

And I _may_ have gotten away with it… if it wasn't for fucking Iago. With a furious glare, he stepped next to Bernard.

"You will accept the duel, Prince Ignis." He ordered. "After your shameful displays with the sword today, you have no right to deny your sister a magic combat."

"What the hell is that kind of logic?" I grunted irritably… and gulped immediately afterwards, for our magic teacher promised me an even worse pain with his eyes if I refused this.

Like a deer caught in headlights, I started trembling, looking to Bernard for support, who just gave me a disinterested side glance, then to Camilla, whose smile was growing too eerily similar to her mother's, and Iago's smug mutt face.

I weighed my options. A thrashing with interest from Camilla, or from Iago?

"Single chants only." I surrendered.

"That will be _plenty_." Camilla presented a perfectly clinical smile.

"If I may." Iago interjected before we went our own ways. "I will not allow any shameful displays from my teachings either, Prince Ignis. _You know full well what I'm talking about._"

"What!?" I protested. "Oh come on!"

"Break that vow and I promise you'll get your just desserts, Prince." Iago warned. "It's about time you took your training seriously."

"But I'm-!"

"Are you saying you can't take little old me without your trickery, _big brother_?" Camilla sing-sang. "You hurt me!"

What the actual fuck…

"Goddammit…" I muttered under my breath. "Fine, I'll do it the hard way."

Sweet Naga, what have I willingly walked into?

Iago smiled arrogantly and hurried us to get ready; for the most part was back to being insufferable these days, even more since live combat was added to the repertoire of activities, though to be fair he was shitty to everybody. Bernard meanwhile gave an exasperated sigh, for while he wasn't privy to all the details, knew us well enough to know that Camilla _really_ wanted to vent a bit, and for better or worse, her way of destressing aligned with the promise of pouring me with a bit of abuse.

Just a bit, hopefully. Either our dear teacher martial thought I could take her on, exhausted as I was, was sadistic enough to let my miserable self be thrashed a bit more before the day ended, or he didn't care; probably all of those combined. Meanwhile our magic teacher maybe just wanted to kick me down a few notches for being such a complicated student.

I heaved back to a bench and picked my Grimoire out from my satchel. Nowadays the magic able children carried them with them at basically all times even when not training or studying, now even more than in the past (Iago was less tolerant on these matters nowadays), and though our recompilations were still subpar for true, live combat standards, the lowest grade spells had been studied well enough and allowed for training. Nohr is quite a savage country in some ways, after all. The single-chant spells wouldn't be lethal unless we really shot to kill, which I hoped Camilla was seriously _not_ contemplating.

I took my buckler off and whimpered silently at the protest of my digits as I cautiously flexed them, then pulled my shoulder blades back, earning a crack that was not all that refreshing, and after taking a good deep breath, I braced myself for the last match.

For any advanced mage worth their salt, even more in our case since we were Royals, we had to prepare our own Grimoires and load with the spells and circles we had mastered, and their purpose was twofold. In their pages we would have to put the absolute best of our runework as well as condense the information we studied under Iago. While normal mages could pick up any Tome, having a personal tome is something that is more practical in the long run for dedicated mages, because having a connection to your spellwork increases their effectiveness, provided you spent the time and resources to make one (which we were facilitated, nepotism ahoy). Camilla, Leo, Bismarck, Lorraine and I had all been compiling our respective Grimoires for about 5 months now, with Camilla, Leo and me having the more extensive ones due to our age for virtue of being the eldest for Camilla and myself, and Leo for his talent and fervor. While a good two thirds of the pages were still blank, the ones that were good to go contained almost everything of the Fire line, with Leo already midway through Thunder and Camilla and I treading not far behind him. Yay for _almost_ being able to cast electricity without self-inflicting nerve damage!

"Ember only, please." I pleaded.

"Spark." Camilla sing-sang. Aw crap.

Spark was the equivalent to Ember in the Thunder line, the weakest spell available there. Which admittedly I was already familiar with, but still…

Iago signaled for one of the maids overlooking the training grounds to activate the wards as Camilla and I made our way to the magic ring at the edge of the training field. It was just a small 18 by 15 meters long square of polished stone dotted with rods of the same material at the corners, and in each stone rod, no taller than a meter, stood a vibrant purple orb that would dispel any offensive magic from leaving the area. Ever since we started delving deeper into Thunder and Bernard officially added sparring to the curriculum, he had seen through that we had this training ready for use at any time, as he expected us to finish Thunder this year and start with Fimbulvetr by December, and there was no better way to test our efficacy than with practical application, the absolute madman.

Camilla hastily took for the left side of the stage while I did the same for the right, with both of us taking a small flight up the stairs of each edge, ending up in opposite sides; we stood in front of each, Tomes under our respective left arms and about the full length of the stage between us. Soon enough I felt the air of the area shift as the wards sealed this area.

"Ready when you are." Camilla said with a pleasant smile, hiding well any sign of exhaustion, if any. She raised her Grimoire up to elbow level and laid it horizontally, and it immediately opened on its own. Drawing upon the pages of the aforementioned spell, diminutive wisps of golden electricity came to life around her right hand while the ink also lit up with a soft glow of alternating emerald, red and gold. She pushed her right leg forward into the standard offensive stance.

I didn't get a chance to get ready.

"_Spark!"_

"Oh fu-!" A discharge of electric power twisted the space right in front of me, which I partially avoided by pulling back, a move that cost me dearly since I didn't really have space to fall back to, being that I was basically at the edge. "What the fuck, Camilla!?"

My answer was yet another discharge. "_Spark!"_

"That how you wanna play!?" I cried, willing my Grimoire to also open onto the first page featuring the Spark spell. As soon as I regained my footing, I pulled my right leg back into a defensive posture. "_Spark!"_

The air around Camilla twisted not too dissimilarly to what had happened in front of me before, and she also received a clean hit. She staggered, and I took my chance to cast again. The pages of my Grimoire flipped in response to my will.

_"__Ember!"_

A small marble of fire came to life in my palm, and shot towards my sister when I extended that palm in her direction. The small flame hit again, and I took a moment to regain my footing. I had done well on the first volley, but knowing my sister…

"Tch! _Spark!_" She growled and promptly retaliated. I wasn't able to dodge completely, and my left shoulder cried in protest.

"Grk!" I grunted, and prepared my counterattack. "_Ember!"_

The minuscule flame was a lot weaker compared to what the standard issue Fire spell would produce, but still stung like a bitch. Magical energy ignited the air in my hand again and shot towards Camilla like a dart. She managed a last second dodge.

Ember was a lot faster than Spark, so a showdown involving it came down to reflexes. Back when we first began all of us got a lot of burns because we simply weren't fast enough, and as the training continued, it reinforced the belief that "Dodge, Deflect, Guard and Take it" is the best hierarchy in any form of combat, with the last one being the least desirable outcome.

In a case like this, in which Spark was also allowed, we needed to be careful with which spells we used at which times. Between Spark and Ember, the casting time was almost minuscule, but we had been taught to capitalize on every instant possible.

In the next window, I switched to Spark and fired as soon as possible. It didn't work. Camilla did see the pages turn and immediately took it as a sign to step to a side, avoiding the golden discharge with ease.

But I wasn't done just yet.

_"__Spark again!"_

A copy of the spell came to life not too late after Camilla's hop and zipped with the same speed as its predecessor, scoring a clean hit on her chest. I did an internal double take.

"You disgraceful-!" Camilla cried indignantly. "You said single chants only!"

"It doesn't do anything!" I cried, and it was true… technically. Putting more words in the same spell would certainly alter the effects slightly, but in this particular case it didn't really amount to anything, as it was a placebo to basically cast the same spell faster, which would be the same as shouting 'Spark!' twice.

"Oh then, it's on!" Camilla grinned a savage smile.

"Don't you dare-!"

_"__Strike, Spark!"_

Aw crap. I received a stronger discharge from that in full, as that single addition increased both the strength and speed of the spell itself, that though it would have meant nothing in live combat, at my age and current Resistance it was enough to both shake and hurt me a small but significant margin more compared to the minimized Spark spell.

I had to bite down the twitching in my hands to stop myself from dropping my book.

"If that's how you wanna play, be my fucking guest!" I growled irritably, switching to an offensive stance. _"Kindle, Ember!"_

A slightly faster fireball shot towards Camilla, who managed to avoid it in the nick of time with a deft jump to a side.

_"__Strike, Spark!"_ She repeated. I barely dodged.

_"__Ember!"_ I countered, but she dodged as well.

_"__Strike, Spark!"_ Camilla casted faster than I expected, and the spell struck me at the left bicep almost completely. I staggered at the hit, and managed to catch Camilla's neutral face out of the corner of my vision.

I fiercely shook my left arm and hand to regain control of them, then extended my right hand backwards slightly below my waist, and with an incomplete circular motion, I enunciated my next spell while ignoring my stinging skin and the warm leather. A small electric ball came to life and shot towards Camilla in an elongated arc rather than a straight line._ "Arch, Spark!"_

And I just knew I had earned myself Iago's punishment anyway even after coming this far without "breaking" my promise. To be fair though, that was a dirty move from my part as well as a questionable one regarding practicality.

I was a lot more liberal and experimental with my spellwork and Iago's greatest point of disdain for me, (which in the beginning almost gave him some aneurysms until I showed _some_ promise), and though I still didn't know the full extent of how much I could tamper with the more complex incantations (and I was afraid of even trying this nonsense with the actual Fire spell), so far I had been able to produce some "modifiers" of my own for my spells, with the best developed one being the aforementioned 'Arch', though it still was a work in progress.

By adding Arch to the beginning of a single chant spell, namely Spark and Ember, I could slightly modify the trajectory of a spell into a curve, as if I were shooting a sling or hurling a ball rather than firing a gun while still not making the projectile completely obey gravity. It had no true potential on its own as it was, being that the spells I could cast with this modifier flew slower compared to a normal chant, but it served to catch my siblings off guard when I mixed it up among the standard spells, as with a bit of good aim I could hit unexpected places. Speaking bluntly though, it was just a cute parlor trick.

What's the difference between my personal modifier and the normal incantations? Every single spell carries a "structure" in its incantation, which when broken down by cutting words in places while still keeping some form of "sense" within the sentence would still allow the caster to activate the spell while weakening the effect somewhat.

Camilla demonstrated a bit of this.

_"__Strike my enemy, Spark!"_ Camilla growled the full incantation. As soon as I heard the words "'my enemy', I braced myself to dodge the fuck out of that.

I desperately jumped to my right, only feeling the air twist and a smell of charcoal reach my nostrils, managing to avoid being blasted by the full chant. I crossed my casting arm (the right one) towards my chest, and willed the magical power to bend to my will.

_"__Strike, Volt!"_I caved in to the pressure and versed two chants. I managed to catch my sister by surprise with this. She received the electricity on her left side and staggered for a moment in which we both stopped casting and looked at each other like cowboys who had already drawn their revolvers.

_"__You went and did it." _Camilla's gaze told me. _"You went and freaking did it."_

I mustered all my bravado. I didn't dare look at Iago outside of the ring.

_"__Bite me, sister."_

And all hell broke loose.

_"__Spark!"_

Hit.

_"__Burn!" _

Avoided.

_"__Spark!"_

Incomplete evasion.

_"__Seek, Volt!"_

Another incomplete hit.

_"__Kindle, Ember!"_

A full hit.

_"__Arch, Volt! Volt!"_

_"__Ember! EMBER!"_

_"__SEEK, VOLT!"_

_"__KINDLE THE ROAD, EMBER!"_

Fire and Lightning kept flying back and forth along with the most disgraceful of dances I had displayed recently. There was no lead in this duel, we darted around like agonizing grasshoppers around the stage, which was already getting charred with each unsuccessful hit, with the wards resonating and gleaming when the badly aimed spells hit them, preventing them from leaving the area.

I was too tired and barely made do, while Camilla tried to rear her anger back as to not commit a basic mistake, and while her job wasn't splendid, she kept enough restraint to keep her barrage consistent enough to not let me find footing.

Soon enough, I miraculously made a full evasion, though I knew I needed to change the status quo of this fight and knock her out as soon as possible, so I dodged completely to the right for once. I didn't have much stamina left, so it would have to end soon.

_"__Burn!"_ I fired another marble of fire towards, which she tanked head on by rushing towards me, damage be damned. My sister was well aware of my intentions, and decided to make a chicken game out of our respective Resistances.

I chickened out first.

_ "__Spark!"_ Camilla roared, and I twisted my torso in an awkward diagonal angle at the last second, grazed by the discharge but still damaged by it.

_"__Burn!"_ I countered, hitting her in her in her left elbow, as she had used her arm to shield her torso.

"I hate your dumb words!" Camilla roared as I deliberately started running away from her, Grimoire still open and firing spells like a madman. "Face me rightly you coward!"

"No thank you! _Burn!_" I shrieked, managing to clear space. I wanted to change the status quo, but not like this!

There was no real difference between "Burn" and "Ember's" effect, as was the case with Spark and Volt. They were the same basic spells, but I further weakened both by actually changing the catalyst word. My reasoning? The number of syllables. Burn and Volt are just one syllable long while both Ember and Spark were two, and this minute difference meant the world for me who still skirted around the basics. If the standard, complete Fire spell was a 10 in power, A complete Ember was about a 3, a minimized one a 2, and "Burn" about a 1.5 give or take; truly a worthless spell for true combat. Thunder meanwhile would be like a 13 in comparison to Fire, with Spark about a 4, and "Volt" a 3, or at least that would be the case for the single chant spells.

After all, all basic spells have a "flight distance", or "impact time", in which the space between the target and the spell's framework would affect the time it would take for the spell to actually connect, which is why sniping with magic wasn't really possible with standard spells, though from what Leo's told me, there actually _is_ long ranged magic, it's just obscure as hell. Wonder if there's something like a Bolting or Meteor Tome hidden under some forsaken library or hermit's study?

Ugh, no time to think about that. I managed to avoid one more Spark from Camilla once before I retaliated with an Ember of my own. I took advantage of the second dash I took, and by pulling my right arm to my left, I prepared an Ember to try and finish this. Do or die for once, I have to do it.

Iago despised me for butchering his teachings like that, as he told me that casting speed would only get me so far. I used magic like a toolbox. And he didn't like it. For him it was a sacred art, but for me it was a means to an end. I wonder if that was the mindset of an arrogant scholar who hadn't seen the battlefield.

I felt my hand heating up in response to my tome and will. Ember was really cost-effective in the sense that it was both easy and quick to cast at the cost of basically non-existent firepower. Any true mage that used it for live combat would be deemed either a fool or an arrogant asshole, but for us children, it would be plenty, and like any other tool, could be rightly dangerous if used correctly… or incorrectly.

_"__Kindle the road, Ember!"_ I growled as my right arm unfurled from below my left and towards Camilla, the marble of fire burning and ready to fly. I saw Camilla's face widening in a combination of surprise and frustration, as she quickly took a defensive posture.

Camilla stumbled and lost her balance, falling on her buttocks against the hard stone, Grimoire still open in her left and an electric sphere twisting erratically on her right. I rushed in towards her position.

"YIELD!" I didn't order so much as I cried frantically, pointing my hand towards my downed sister with an Ember primed. My heart was beating like if it had been put through a mixer, and that mixer thrown downhill, ready to burst at any moment.

Camilla's snarl didn't retreat, though I managed to decipher that something other than anger was now beginning to reflect in her face. It wasn't quite fear.

I struggled to keep my arm raised, and though I tried not to, it wobbled. I was sleepy, I was exhausted, mentally and physically, I was tired of a lot of things.

"YIELD!" I growled once more, as Camilla hadn't dispelled her Spark yet.

My vision swam, and I lost focus. Not now…!

My right shin soon protested, and I found myself stumbling again, and out of the corner of my vision, a golden light engulfed me, and behind that blinding shine, with a disgruntled expression that showed a combination of bewilderment, anger, and desperation, Camilla casted once more.

_"__Seek my enemy, Spark!"_

I would be spending a bit of time in the infirmary after that…


	14. Hidden Track: A Sister's Horizon

**Hidden Track 1: A Sister's Horizon**

"Ouch!" He recoiled, unable to escape from my grasp.

"Stop squirming already." I grunted.

"Would it hurt you to be more careful?"

"No pain, no gain, Big Brother."

"When did you overcome my level of cynicism!? It's too damn high! High as fuck! Are you some sort of prodigy in the art of smartassery!? Gah! How dare you turn my own words against me!?"

"Shut up." I just pressed the bandages harder.

"Ack! I give! I GIVE! UNCLE! _UNCLE!_"

Leo and Bismarck's gaze danced between myself and our Dumb Big Brother worryingly, and though Leo's mouth opened a few times, no words came from it.

As for me? I just don't like the sight of those creamy white bandages against our brother's charred skin. It looks _wrong_… Although I don't like his charred skin either, but that was the one thing that I had come to associate with him. I didn't know him any other way...

"You dummy."

My brother's smile faltered though he tried to keep it, as usual. He's not fooling anyone whatsoever, though knowing his thick skull, he must think he's getting away with it. He shrieked again when I straightened and tightened the cloth.

"Ugh…!" _There_ it is, _that_ miserable whimper. "Please, Azura, I'm fine."

"Really now?"

"Reall_EOWCH! SON OF A-!_"

"Yes, I don't believe you." I fixed it again… perhaps too strongly, and for a moment, I saw his dumb smile flinch, and for once, he silently understood, as did Leo and Bismarck.

An awkward silence filled the room as I continued my work in peace since our Dumb Big Brother was brought to the infirmary. Though he had been already been healed with a staff, I had seen through the rest of the treatment myself – I won't let those maids near my brother, I already took care of all of us well enough! Mother had helped me with learning to use our family's magic as well as teaching me how to treat cuts and magical injuries, and recently, Big Brother was often in here, covered in bandages. And knowing him, he won't be learning to use a staff himself any time soon.

…Hopefully, Mother's lessons prove true. She's told me again and again that pain is the best teacher… but Big Brother seems to have an obsession with being defiant. Either that or he just refuses to learn; he's dumb like that.

He makes me angry.

"What about the lessons?" He asked.

"They ended a while ago." Leo answered.

"And Camilla?"

"In her room." Bismarck followed softly. "Eldest Brother went after her."

"Did either say anyth-_Fuck_! Azura, please!" I kind of messed up there…

"Worry about yourself first." I saved face, just as Mother taught me. "You were hit all around your left shoulder, a bit over the right arm and the worst hit your dumb face."

"Huh. That explains why I'm missing half my field of view. Shit, can that heal?"

**"****What!?" **All three of us shouted right away.

"I'm joking!" He cried desperately as all three of us piled up on him.

Thank the gods. He really was joking.

_ "__You dummy…"_

He got himself a stab at the shoulder for that.

"You really need to work on your defensive posture, Big Brother." Leo eventually supplied after we had gathered ourselves. Why must he be focused on that kind of dumb stuff as always? The following he muttered under his breath, but we all still heard it. _"And your offense too…"_

And he was right, for worse.

"Did I lose any limbs?" Big Brother retorted in that strange tone I hate, like he didn't really care what happened to him. Pain was his answer for it, courtesy of me. "OW!"

"Not yet, sadly." I answered bluntly… and I wasn't quite sure if I was serious or not. "You've got Thunder burns all over, but not any apparent permanent damage."

"So bottom-line: I got my ass kicked thoroughly and will live to receive another ass kicking. Lovely."

"Why did you agree to fight again, Big Brother?" Bismarck's voice became thin as a strand. "You're… you're not well… you… you _haven't been well for a while…_"

"And get myself drilled to death by Iago?" He retorted, bitterness coating his voice and unable to look at any of us in the eye. No one answered, and I finished wrapping him.

"You have to stop hesitating." I said. He couldn't let another one of these drills end like this again.

"Azura, I'm fine." He tried to reassure. My hands stopped, and I found my palms running through the length of his covered arm. I bit my lip down as my eyes fell.

I… I absolutely despised seeing my brother like this. Why must he be like this…? Why can't he be more careful?

Was I… was I trembling?

"Master Iago has always said that magic is a tool…" I heard Leo's voice.

"And any tool can be dangerous. I know." Big Brother cited like reading off a book. "We are to be more precise than any arrow, we are to be deadlier than any blade, we are to be even stronger than the storms that shake the earth, we can't allow room for error; we are to be those who manipulate the elements of nature to do the will of Nohr and scorch its enemies."

Brother _hated_ that phrase. Whenever Master Iago made us recite that during the magic exams, and whenever he used his dumb tricks, Master Iago made us repeat that phrase over and over again. And recently I kind of understood why. I felt like it was asking us to do what Garon told us, that we didn't deserve to be happy... that we didn't deserve to have thoughts of our own.

"I know my shortcomings, Leo." Big Brother said forcefully, biting back at the evident frustration, bitterness and resignation that were all taking ahold of him. "I know I always think too much at every single step. That I always fail at the critical moment. Bernard gives me enough shit as is."

He sighed, looking at an empty spot on the ceiling.

"Stamina will only carry you so far." Leo said.

With spells as basic as Spark and Ember, we couldn't really kill each other so long we didn't fire at a vital area with the full chant or went for a barrage, but it was still risky, and though Big Brother could by all means draw fights out for long, he always faltered to deliver decisive blows. Elder Sister Camilla was simpler minded in that regard: She didn't hesitate and showed it.

"I know, Leo. Stop pestering me about things I already know." Big Brother sighed.

It made me angry.

"Don't vent this on him. This is your fault." I spat crossly.

"I know, Azura." He replied forcefully. "But I don't need you nagging on me; I got enough problems as is."

I poked him harder.

"OW!"

Leo flinched and Bismarck gasped.

"Don't you DARE push us aside." I growled. Since when… Why does this make me so angry? "What is going on, Big Brother? What are you dumb grown-ups doing?"

"Y-you…-" He stammered. "That's not your-"

"Why won't you trust me?" I felt sick to my stomach.

"Azura, I-"

He was interrupted… by Bismarck of everyone.

"Eldest Brother Xander, Elder Sister Camilla and you d-don't look at each other in the eye during breakfast, o-or studying, or breaks or d-dinner, and in training you fight like you really… that you really want to hurt each other. Y-you're s-skulking around the castle, in the middle of the night, w-w-with homework no one can… that no one read, a-a-and every morning you l-look like you've slept less e-each time." His voice faltered more at each word. "This… this has been going on for m-months now, Big Brother. What… w-what is g-going on?"

Big Brother Ignis couldn't dare to look at Bismarck in the eye. And when I turned towards him, I… I could see that Bismarck wasn't even sad or angry, he was just… tired.

He had the same expression that I had most of the time, even now.

"You… You knew…?"

Bismarck didn't dare reply, but I could see the truth in Leo's eyes. It was noticed by Big Brother too.

"It's hard not to notice when we're together all the time, Big Brother." The elder of the blond duo caved in.

"You don't give us enough credit, Dumb Big Brother Ignis." I followed, clenching at my training fatigues. "It has to do with Lorraine, doesn't it?"

Big Brother took a moment before answering. He breathed, slowly, and gave us a complicated expression.

"You kids will be the death of me, I swear. You're too damn perceptive." I could see him looking for courage. It took… way too long for him to keep talking. "It's no secret that Lorraine's in trouble… And we grown-ups are deliberating how to help her."

"But why are you even fighting? You're all worried about the same thing!" Leo pointed, with Bismarck nodding worriedly.

"…Because we want to help her each in our own ways." He chose his words carefully. "And those ways don't necessarily work together."

…What?

"…How so?" Leo asked warily.

"Let's just say that Xander wants to solve this with diplomacy, Camilla wants to use the… explosive option, and I want to use the… the _backhanded_ way." He said slowly.

He's not telling the truth, or at least not all of it.

Big Brother then pushed his legs down, and immediately stumbled the moment he tried to set foot. A delicate push was enough to stop him from going anywhere further.

"B-Big Brother?" Bismarck's eyes widened almost comically as he rushed to his side, Leo close behind him.

"I need to see Xander. I absolutely _cannot _let today end without talking to him" He declared forcefully.

"What you need is to lie down and rest." I held my ground. Under other circumstances, perhaps he could have shrugged me off, but he was in no condition to do that now, and I had Leo and Bismarck to help me. He would _not_ leave this bed tonight.

"Let me go." He ordered miserably.

"I'm sure it can wait." Leo pleaded. "You're in no condition to leave."

"It can't." He rebutted. "I made a promise with Xander."

All three of us eyed him incredulously.

"I'd give him three days, today is that third day." He hurried. "Guys, you _need to let me go_."

"Three days for what?" Leo queried suspiciously.

"I don't have time for 20 questions, goddammit! _I need to go now!_" He roared.

"No. That is not happening." I held firm. "You're not going."

"Oh, for the love of fuck!" He cursed. "Is today the national 'Bully Ignis Day' or something!? I wasn't asking for your permission!"

"Neither were we."

The other two nodded furiously.

"I don't think it'd do any good if you went in your current state, Big Brother." Bismarck spoke as if imitating Leo.

"You can barely walk as is." Leo supplied. "You show clear signs of sleep deprivation and subsequent exhaustion; it would be counterproductive for you to leave in your current state."

"Spare me the dictionary, Leo." He growled irritably. "Lorraine is-"

"Safe in her room."

Gods, why couldn't he understand that? He… he looked almost hurt when I said that.

"Azura." He pleaded. "I don't trust anyone in this castle– not the guards, not the teachers, not the doctors, not the maids, not even the freaking chefs – I trust none of them."

"Do you not trust us? Because it looks that way." I spat back, perhaps too much like those bad women in the castle Big Brother and Mother hated so much.

His hand slapped itself against his forehead at that inadvertently, and after a moment he just pinched the bridge of his nose.

"If it is really important, Eldest Brother will come to you." Bismarck reasoned.

"None of you will let me through, will you?" Big Brother puffed. "Alright, alright. Let's just do something while we wait, at least."

I didn't know I had been holding a sigh, as had Bismarck. Leo also smiled brightly, and quickly hopped to his satchel, and took the deck of cards.

* * *

"Pass me the threes and the fives." Leo said after what seemed to be an eternity.

"Don't do it, Brother Leo." Bismarck pleaded.

His response was a knowing grin.

"Too late."

I wordlessly passed him both triplets while giving him the stink eye, which Leo took in stride as he made his move. He took the 3 and 5 of Spades from their respective spreads, replacing each with his own 3 of Diamonds and 5 of Hearts, then using the separated ones to make his straight flush going all the way from the 2 up to the 6, all in Spades.

"Goddammit." Big Brother cursed, and followed with a sigh, which Bismarck also imitated.

"Language, Big Brother."

"Nyeh." He pulled his tongue out.

"Done." Leo pointed out haughtily.

"Pass." Bismarck blew at the bangs covering the right half of his face, and drew. His resigned look at his new addition didn't inspire confidence.

"No Jokers yet?" I asked aloud, and was answered with a wave of collective 'Nahs'. I focused between my hand and the playing field. Doesn't look too good.

So far there were a bunch of low-numbered sequences and a handful of three-of-a-kinds. We all had already covered the opening plays (set to a low-ish 15 to get into the mix-and-matching quickly, which was honestly our favorite part in Rummikub). Our main problem at the moment was that we were missing a bunch of middle numbers, and if my suspicions were right, we all had dead cards in the form of Jacks, Queens and Kings.

"Come on, I swear you're holding onto them." Big Brother says half-accusing, half-joking.

At least he looks better now.

"Rather than worrying about my hand, worry about your dead draws first, Brother. " Leo disarmed him with cold facts and logic. "Or do I need to remind you that there are no nines on play yet?"

"Hey shut it, anyone can confuse a six and a nine!" He defended gracelessly.

"Yeah, suuuuuure." Leo rubbed the salt further.

"Sheesh, let me think in peace." I butted in, trying to fit this card of mine along the spreads in play.

"We're still missing some sixes and there are no eights yet, Big Sister Azura." Bismarck pointed out quietly. "That seven of yours is not coming down anytime soon."

Humph! I ignored him.

"Come on, pass already, Azura. It's clear you got nothing." Big Brother poked without honor.

I sighed in defeat. "Might as well just drop this rather than drawing I guess."

I broke off Leo's flush in half, adding a 4 of Spades of my own to create two smaller ones in place, going from 2 up to 4, and a 4 up to 6 respectively.

"That's all from me."

"Keep burning the sixes for me, will you? Pass." Big Brother complained again. That 9 of Spades will be the end of him, I swear. His last addition wasn't good at all either, I just _know_.

"Urk." Leo grunted, and nervously scanned the field. In the end, he sighed, and dropped a 7 of Spades on the flush.

"Oh, you cheeky jerk." Big Brother laughed. Of course Leo would do something like that to avoid drawing.

"Don't you dare play that eight, Bismarck." Leo warned. Bismarck gave him a blank, unamused look and played it anyway, further extending the flush. "Why you!"

"Thank you." I took the opportunity to play my own nine of Spades.

"SON OF A WYVERN!" Big Brother tossed his cards onto the table, earning a laugh out of all of us. Leo laughed heartily, while Bismarck tried to save face by covering his mouth with his hand. "Dang, Azura, what an evil look! You really are Arete's daughter! I swear I'll get you next time! Mark my words! My vengeance will be terrible!"

He drew with copious amounts of indignation.

"Not as terrible as your luck." Bismarck whispered under his breath, which only furthered Leo's laughter and caused my grin to widen even further.

"I swear this _is_ National bully Ignis day!"

The rest of the turns passed on quickly. As soon as the three of us got that 9 in place, the game picked up tremendously. It wouldn't be long until curfew, and we had managed 3 full games, with the scoreboard showing a single win for Bismarck and two for Leo. Neither Big Brother nor I had won any games yet, but I had at least blocked him a few times from doing big plays.

The infirmary would have been mildly dark if not for the candles Bismarck had so graciously lighted for us, and we had a much better atmosphere in this otherwise somber room filled with odd smells from the bottles of ointments and medicines. For the better, we had left the conversation from earlier alone, though we had wordlessly agreed that we'd keep near Big Brother until either we were fetched and forced back to our rooms, or Eldest Brother Xander came to talk with him. Otherwise Big Brother would be spending the night here.

Eventually, the maids came to fetch us, calling for dinner, and Big Brother finally managed to shoo me away, but not before he promised that he'd wait for me to come back with his dinner later. As we gathered our belongings, Big Brother quickly gathered the scattered cards and merged them together into one single deck.

He didn't order them carefully as he usually did… he just made a messy stack and placed it on the nightstand.

Big Brother is not okay. And yet… and yet I can't do anything about it. I know Big Brother is… different, from Xander, from me… surely from everyone else in this castle. Bismarck was right about everything, and I hate it.

I didn't catch up with my little brothers immediately, because I stayed behind for a few moments, spying, or "eavesdropping" on my Dumb Big Brother Ignis from the other side of the door, just like he usually did when he was being nosy. I didn't like that about him, but he wasn't wrong that people usually don't lie when they think they're alone.

I had to wait for a bit too long, but I eventually heard it. I heard Big Brother whimpering.

Something… something hurt, the kind that I haven't felt since… since that time, back when everything was fine… at home, my _real_ home, back when we were happy. I don't like Nohr, I don't like Krakenburg. I miss the springs, the foggy skies, those green flying islands… I miss my friends, my cousins, my uncles and aunts… Not everything was good, but compared to this dark place, Valla was better, _much_ better. It still feels like a dream, and I don't like thinking about it, I just get sad and something clogs my throat.

I know I can't go back. There is no place for Mother and me to return to. Everything was destroyed by Anankos, and now we can't even speak of it, because we'll turn into water if we do. Mother was honest too, she said that Nohr would be difficult, that she didn't know how long we'd have to stay, that I would need to be strong in this place, that she couldn't protect me at all times…

That I should be ready to move on my own at any time. _Alone._

I hate this place. I hate Nohr, I hate the King, I hate those bad women who are always giving me scary looks… I hate that my "siblings" are so scary too. I try to be brave, like Mother told me, to hide how scared I am, and though it's hard, I think I've managed to do good, but I still don't like it.

Bismarck, Leo and Big Brother Ignis are an exception though. They play with me all the time, and even though I know I'm mean sometimes, Big Brother Ignis lets me say what is on my mind, and even if Leo is a big time bookworm (Big Brother says 'nerd', whatever that means) and Bismarck cries too much, I… I really like being around them, so much so that I don't think I'd like being separated from them. The rest of our big brothers and sisters… Well… it's a bit harder. I like Big Sis Lorraine, she's very smart, but not like Leo, she's smarter with people than with books, I guess…? Even though I know she doesn't like me much, I still think it's horrible what happened to her.

I thought Elder Sister Camilla might become a bit nicer now that Lorraine was hurt, but that doesn't seem likely even now. Big Brother Ignis is hurt because of her, after all. I thought she had been honestly sad when Lorraine was hurt, I thought that maybe, Elder Sister Camilla wasn't that much different from Big Brother in the end, but… was I wrong?

At the end… we're not really family? What am I even doing here?

My hands hurt from clenching so hard.

I don't care what her problem is, I don't like when she hurts Dumb Big Brother, even if he deserves it most of the time. I don't like how Big Brother keeps following Eldest Brother Xander around either.

'Debating' how to help Big Sister Lorraine? What does that even mean?

I've learned that I do not truly know anything. Even back home, mother always kept secrets from me, from everyone. We watched the castle fall as we left our home, and even now, I don't truly know everything.

Will anything change if I were to ask mother about it? Would she even tell me? Sometimes I feel that even though he says otherwise… that at the end of the day, Big Brother doesn't really trust us. And yet, I feel bad too, because I can't tell him either.

Though I was called by a maid to stop dallying, these thoughts remained with me, even as I left my brother's side. Big Brother often said that sometimes the best thing we can do in a bad situation is to just don't think about it and move on.

Yet, why does it feel so wrong now?


	15. Supporting Me

**Track 14: Supporting Me**

Something eerie stirred me awake from my torpor. I willed my eyes open… and found that I couldn't do so; after a moment of struggling, I also found that my throat was being blocked somehow and my arms weren't responding to any commands, and as soon as I managed to make some sense of my body while still being covered under the combined blankets of the darkness of the night and my own closed eyelids, something glacial ran through my veins and bones. Not for a lack of trying, I managed to open my mouth just a little, but my throat didn't cooperate, as rather than words, my voice came in the form of a guttural moan. I hadn't rested at all, having been plagued by increasingly nonsensical and ensnaring thoughts that carried over into my dreamless sleep.

Something was speaking to me, but I couldn't make any sense of it, as my mind was bursting to the limit with combined, disjointed, _overbearing_ thoughts – no, _screams_ of all types. Screams about Xander, about Arete, about Camilla, about Anankos, about Garon, about the upcoming war, about Lorraine, about Azura, about myself – there was no order to anything whatsoever. The racing thoughts and ideas clashed one against another in a torrential stream that I could only struggle against… and fail. I didn't know if the voice was mine. I tried to make form of my surroundings, but there was nothing but darkness to greet me.

Something within those shadows took form. I couldn't quite place it, but just _knowing_ it was there filled me with a sense of pure, _unadulterated terror_, and yet I had no voice, no strength, no _arms nor will_ to face it head on. It was impossible to try and do so. The amorphous form stared with blinded eyes, and approached- no _dragged itself_ in my direction … or was it that I was walking towards it? Within the ebony void, I couldn't tell.

Yet I tried to run.

I couldn't make any of this stop, as the voices grew louder and louder within this maelstrom of thoughts… and something else _crawled_ within me in a cacophony of things coming together, _mixing together yet not coming together, _in a jumbled mess, _burning into stillness,_ into an abyss of faces, of names, of smells, of sensations, of_imagesrecollectionshabitsideasreflexesexperiencesticsinstinctsthoughtsardorfeelings-_

I couldn't make any of this stop. The amorphous blob drew closer.

Yet I tried to run.

_Strife. Admiration. Depression. Warmth. Desire. Admonishment. Solitude. _

I couldn't make any of these thoughts stop.

The silhouette kept coming closer.

I wasn't running fast enough.

_Frustration. Disappointment. Shame. **Anger.**_

_Brother… No… Please don't look at me like that!_

I couldn't run away from the unknown form.

**_So much anger._**

_Contempt. Pity. Shame. Apathy. **Wrath.**_

_Mother… **who…?**_

**_MAKE THESE THOUGHTS STOP!_**

The bony hand grasped me, and **pulled**.

* * *

My eyes jolted open, though my body didn't react immediately, leaving me with a scrambled mind, a rushing heart and jagged breath. Due of the darkness of the room, the first thing that came to me was the acrid smell of sweat, which soon enough I linked to my hyperventilating self, though not for a lack of trying. Lo and behold, I was caked in it, and there was very little light to help me make sense of anything else. The candle had extinguished – surely a long time ago, the curtains were closed, and there was but a faint glow from the mockery of Nohr's moonlight to help me through, which might as well have not been present. I could barely make sense of where I was amidst the almost pitch-black room.

I ran my palm through my forehead and down my face, unsurprised by the thick sheet of sweat that painted it, alongside a hauntingly familiar back pain that often plagued me in the mornings after nights like these. I didn't feel rested, as this was the latest out of 3 or 4 times I had awoken during the course of my stay in the infirmary since last night.

Xander hadn't come, and I felt a combination of relief, anxiety, tension and soul crushing disappointment all at once. While I knew I had to do this, a part of me still hesitated; I knew I had already put a foot into the fire and I couldn't come back, and to make matters worse, I had also pulled Xander to the edge of it as well; as much as I'd like to deny so, I didn't really understand the scope of the fire either, and I would most likely be burned to death before I did so.

I lied in the bed for an unknown amount of time. It could have been minutes or hours for all I knew as I continued to be assaulted by increasingly erratic thoughts. Parts of my nightmares were still present in my head, as my imagination was mainly assaulted by the image of that _something_ that had been chasing me. Though I had managed to yank myself awake, I had learned throughout the course of my time here that good sleep was one of the luxuries I did not have, _that I did not deserve_. Add to that the current situation and it's a wonder I haven't snapped yet… or perhaps I did already and haven't noticed? The only thing I know for real is that it's been… years ever since I had a night's rest.

No time to dwell on that, though. My body was still heavy, and my muscles and bones protested from the healing from yesterday, but I managed to pull myself up somehow, otherwise I would lie awake in the dark, trapped within a maze of my own making. Like a puppet with cut strings, I stood up… and immediately fell to the ground, because my legs gave up on me. I cursed to the void and grabbed onto the bed to slowly stand up using it as support, because my body just did not listen to me.

_"Xander… I need to see Xander…"_

My knees protested the most once I managed to prop myself on them and after that it was a matter of forcing my weight upon one leg… then the other… My left shoulder gave the loudest complaints once I started stressing it, being that I had impacted on it when I fell. To lessen the burden if only a bit, I decided to loosen Azura's bandages to give me some circulation.

Bad idea, the exposed skin stung. I had no shirt, so my arms and chest immediately protested when the cloth left me.

And yet, I moved forward. With heavy steps, I rose from the ground, and with equally heavy breaths, I managed to prop myself at a wall. I had to lie against it for a few minutes too.

After perhaps too long, I decided to move. I clenched my right hand into a fist, then extended my fingers again as I ran magical power through it.

_"T-torch."_ I willed a wisp of ghastly fire to come to life, only to flicker and die immediately afterward, as I didn't have enough energy or the calm to manage even that. I tried once more, yet I never managed to make it remain, leaving me with shrouded in the dark. Fighting against the frustration and lack of results, I decided to move even without light, propped against the wall for support all the while.

_"Brother, please…"_

Everything felt- no, WAS wrong.

I lurched a bit when reaching for the handle of the door. I still needed the wall to keep myself standing, and in just the instant I stopped leaning on it to open the door, I felt absolutely sick.

I don't know how I managed after that; I only remember crawling along darkened corridors and skulking in the shadows as I made way through a place that by all means should have been familiar in some measure, yet felt like an endless maze. Turns, returns, intersections, doors and more flew past as my legs carried me.

The wind was the only thing that I could trust, though it wasn't much help either… I remember that even though I couldn't see worth a damn, the sound of the wind rattling against the glass windows, as well the gusts blowing throughout the castle's interior were the only things that let me know I was advancing… and even then, I was still rattled, for my ears rang at every single step. Like a thousand insects screeching alongside the night, static filled the wind and dizzied me at every step.

As before, I don't know how much time had passed. One door, two doors, ten doors, one hallways, any hallways, everything looked the same to my hands, and I couldn't make a single thing in my blindness so I relied on the feeling of stone and carpet under my bare feet and the stone of the walls and wood of the doors in my hands to guide me. I… I didn't even really know if I was going in the correct direction. I was lost, lost and wandering, but I refused to give up. Coming across a hallway was hell, as leaving me with only my feet to guide me wasn't exactly pleasant, which is probably why I kept going in circles.

Yet eventually, something broke the already chaotic dissonance even further.

"Ufufu…"

A chilling, mocking laugh reached my ears, the one other thing I could still rely on… though I couldn't say the same about my voice, which never left my throat. I propped my back fully against the wall I was leaning in in an effort to protect myself. I was so dazed I couldn't really make sense of where the eerie laugh came from, nor did I have the state of mind to analyze it.

"What a sorry state you're in, Burning Prince."

The voice was distorted, so distorted and full of mocking mirth that I would have surely lashed out in any other circumstance. My heart sank when I _felt_ whoever… or _what_ever was stalking me make rounds in my vicinity. My senses, though dulled, _screamed_ at the danger this presence meant, and in my hysteria, my mind became full with something of my previous nightmares.

My voice cracked, and a pitiful moan not unlike a dying beast left my lips, but there were no words to it, just a deplorable cry of anguish and fear.

"A…Aaaaa…."

A familiar instinct, that of fight or flight, kicked in once more, but being the disgraceful scum of the earth that I was, the coward that I truly was, I remained frozen. No amount of training, no amount of alertness or preparedness meant squat in this situation, not to me, the most useless of the Nohrian siblings.

And then… the voice spoke again, right next to my ear: "Scared?"

Seconds stretched to infinity. I felt the air ready to rip. The one thing I noticed was the stench of blood on this person _or thing_ that was next to me. Even if I couldn't identify who or what this was, I could practically _feel_ the blood on them. My senses were in disarray, yet, I know with every fiber of my being, that this was someone who absolutely _wanted_ and _could_ hurt me.

"You should be."

I scurried against the door I had been sliding towards, opened it, _and ran_. Without direction, without care, I just wanted get the fuck out of there. I sought the light, and I didn't care what I had to do to leave this blasted blindness away. I tripped who knows how many times against obstacles I couldn't see, and each time, without fail, with an energy I didn't know I had within my already exhausted self, I _ran_ with everything I had and more. I crashed against walls, I tripped against walls, I opened doors without a care, and just kept moving onward.

To this day, I don't know if I ran for minutes or hours. And the worst part is that I refused to lose consciousness, though even my adrenaline rush was starting to wear off. I ran, ran and _ran_, still like a headless, _blind_ chicken, _still_ without destination, still with neither quarter nor a place to hide.

But like everything in life, even that came to an end. My senses were finally washed by the familiar dense and cold air from the castle's exterior that invaded my lungs. I tripped against what I supposed was a short flight of stairs, and fell down to whatever outside part of Krakenburg I was in, and after that, I couldn't rise anymore, for my left knee cried in protest and wouldn't rise anymore, it _wouldn't_ respond anymore, and no matter how hard I tried to move it, it ached with mind-numbing pain.

So I dragged myself on the ground, crying, defeated and miserable.

"My oh my…" The same distorted voice reached me once more eventually. In other circumstances, I would have realized that the voice was exasperated and no longer completely calm like before, but at that moment, I didn't care about anything other than my own survival. I knew that I was about to die.

"I'll give you this, brat." The voice said irritably. "You've been a cunning one, very much so, a thorn in the side for many years for my lady and her noble goals. Consider this your first and last warning: Stop all your cute little plans, and you won't have to die, and neither will any of your 'brothers' and 'sisters'." It said the last words with particular distaste.

A silver flash released me from the darkness alongside a sharp pain. The world went still for a second once my eyes finally saw the dark skies of Krakenburg slowly give way to our mockery of sunrise. The first thing I saw were the smoggy dark clouds of the night sky, product of the furnaces that littered Krakenburg and Windmire to keep ourselves warm, and behind those dense smokes, I could see a pale gold light attempting to pierce through. There were rarely any stars in Krakenburgs's sky; the Windmire and Castle were constructed in a crater of sorts, and any and all light we had, if ever, was minimal.

My eyes then slowly went to the gleaming silver right next to me, which I eventually identified as a silver dagger embedded rather harshly in the ground, mere inches away from having taken my head, and instead, my cheek was grazed and bleeding from it. The next thing I did was veer down, and right at the broken door I had blasted through, was a figure smiling cruelly under their cloak.

With a leap I hadn't known was possible, the figure leaped easily towards my direction, and soon enough, it was over me. The figure hunched over, covering me like a shadow, and I heard him or her giggle. My heart ran cold when the figure extended its arm towards me, rubbing their thumb on my cheek, then grabbing the dagger next to me.

"You and I meeting once more is within your own hands, Burning Prince." The figure said, and though the voice wasn't distorted anymore, it wasn't anyone I recognized.

Then, whoever that bastard was, gave me a mighty backslap, and I passed away.

* * *

The _next_ time I awakened, I was groggy like I had been put against a team-vs-1 featuring Xander, Norbert, Gunther, Bernard and Camilla, in which I was a 1-man stand. I was completely thrashed, tired, beaten and miserable, and though I didn't register it immediately, I was numb as well. Like one of those really bad Monday mornings, my body protested when I attempted to move.

"Don't move." A familiar voice said. I managed to open a single left eye, as the right half of my face was covered in bandages.

I saw Azura once more. She looked completely thrashed as well. She was pale, her long locks of hair were in disarray, with dark bags under her eyes, and she looked like she hadn't slept or eaten in days. I stirred a bit even though she told me not to, and my body protested once more.

God, I'm being beaten around like a ragdoll these days too much, on and off training. The pain subsided eventually, and soon after I scanned my surroundings once more. I identified the room I was in as Azura's.

"W-Water…" I pleaded. Azura's eyes lit up immediately, and I heard a crash soon after. Though it hurt to even turn my head, it didn't take too long to see that Azura's room was a complete and utter mess. Bedsheets, clothes and more lied all over, as did staves and more infirmary stuff I would expect to see in the _infirmary_. Upon inspecting the farther ends of the room, I found that the door was barricaded chaotically with furniture including her desk, chair and… her closet!?

The small girl frantically sought something in the room, which I couldn't really make sense off. She muttered curses under her breath as she turned and upturned all manner of things from dresses to bandages to empty flasks. She eventually stopped, and for a couple seconds lied completely still. Soon after she muttered something to herself and harshly kicked something metallic back under her bed.

With a focus I rarely saw on her face, she took a single empty glass bottle and placed it on the night still. She stared at the flask so hard she almost broke it, but eventually steeled herself for something. Azura then breathed harshly and extended her palms over the glass, keeping them close together, and I felt the air shift. Clear water came to life from somewhere I did not know, and it poured onto the glass sloppily, though it eventually overflowed, causing her to break focus in a mild panic. She didn't miss a beat and offered it to me.

"What the…?"

"Just drink it." She said abashedly. I did down it in one go, for it was a minuscule amount of water.

"What is going on…?" I managed to ask. "Are we locked in your room?"

She didn't bother answering, so I instead tried to move, and found that my left leg ached immensely.

"D-don't move I said!" Azura whimpered. "Your knee was broken!"

Say what.

Azura then fidgeted, nervously looking from one place to another.

"What do I do? What do I do?" She repeated frantically.

"Azura, what's going on?" I asked slowly.

"Oh Gods. Oh Gods. I need to tell mother… but I can't just-"

"Azura, look at me!" I yanked her by the arm, perhaps a bit too forcefully, though it did serve to make her react.

Tears finally welled in her eyes, and she broke like a dam. She threw herself on me, embracing me with all her strength.

"Brother! Big Brother!" She sobbed again and again as she clung for dear life. She tried to talk, but between cries and clear snot, I couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. But I could sense the distress in her voice. Amidst her crying, I could repeatedly make out 'Norbert', 'Camilla' and 'gone'.

"Azura, you're worrying me! What's going on!?" I took her by the shoulders and pulled her away from me. Despair like none I've seen before colored her from up to down.

"B-B-Buh-B-Buh-" She kept babbling, her head erratically turned up and down, and with a terrified look, she finally faced me.

"B-B-Big Sis Camilla… she…" Her voice faltered, and my heart sank. "S-s-she killed Norbert's mother!"

...What!?

* * *

**Author's note: Not quite dead yet. ****Shoutouts to the fellas at the Book of Naga, SI Smackdown 2019 and Fictendo Treehouse Discord servers! Seeing them do great work and knowing that I still get some follows at this crapsack work keeps me motivated, though I know that consistency is like, not in my curriculum whatsoever. Special shoutouts to DestructionDragon360 for helping out with the sidechapter!  
**

**I usually hang around at the FT, so feel free to drop by: / 9XG3U7a**


	16. Mire

**Foreword: I bumped the rating to M due to concerns regarding what will happen in this chapter.**

* * *

**Track 15: Mire**

**\- The Divided Eldest -**

"...And that is the end of the report, milord."

"My gratitude."

I took a moment to quickly read over the report once more though I already had my confirmation; worrying as expected. I reached for my own letter. "Send this to Duke Viscount Lazuli, and return to Commander Mazpulez' core after, I haven't heard of his answer yet regarding the Armos siege. I expect an answer by the end of the week at the latest, Gerhardt."

"Of course."

I turned to my other retainer, who's fidgeting as usual.

"As for you, Küchle, you are to gather information regarding Port Dia's situation. Thane Trishula will absolutely receive the news sooner rather than later, and I want to be the first to know when it happens, even sooner than my Father."

"Shall I investigate in the Southern Guild?" The pale woman asked, certainly more for confirmation than actual doubt.

"Indeed, do begin there." I produced a parchment from my coat and handed it to her. Thankfully I was able to procure the Royal Family's seal. "This pass will allow you to go directly to the Guildmaster. I expect a detailed report by tomorrow nightfall, unless the Thane is already on the move; only then you may use the seal and Royal Messenger corps to report back to me immediately, and I mean, _immediately_."

She nodded ungainly.

"Are you separating us, milord?" Gerhardt asked.

"Yes. There is not much time before my Father returns, and you are the only ones I can trust for this task."

"Why..." Küchle muttered.

"Are you dissatisfied with my orders, Küchle?" I raised my voice.

"I-in the least, milord!" She responded hastily, but her eyes told otherwise. "Your will shall be done."

Gerhardt meanwhile shrugged, and I could feel his shared inner feelings. Though he'd never complain out loud, his demeanor reeks of not wanting to be here. These two are rather unreliable... or is this train of thought my frustration getting the better of me?

"The Ministers have already called for a meeting right after my Father's return, which is expected for the end of the month. I need this information before that happens." I continued.

Neither are satisfied, in the absolute least. Irritating.

"You have your orders."

They didn't react.

"You are dismissed." I growled.

The both of them finally reacted, taking their cue to leave with awkward bows and unsure steps. At least they can understand basic commands-

Hmm… Ignis rubbing on me, isn't he? I shouldn't be so crass. I might not trust them to the same extent I did Octavius and Fatima, but they do deserve a chance. Walter Gerhardt does come from the army, so he knows his way around military affairs, while Elsa Küchle is... a bit too green, too reliant on Gerhardt's experience, but she does know her way around with a spear; sadly, she's proven far too nervous to handle her tasks, which is just unacceptable-

...I should stop this train of thought altogether, for there's still plenty to do. Plenty tasks indeed… and far more important ones than nitpicking at my retainers' behavior.

There's unrest in Nohr.

Father's excursions to the borders have not gone unnoticed. The centralization of resources and investment in the army have put the southern territories on edge. The Lords of Nestra are already questioning the increase in shipments for rations and copper when there's next to nothing to pay for them… or so it seems, and we have Lord Crusch to thank for communications being in disarray. Thankfully, Father has quelled most of these worries throughout the last year in the frontiers, and I'm sure that once I report Lord Crusch' little 'mishandlings', that'll be the end of it... yet the same cannot be said for the rest of our borders to the southeast and east… and that does not even consider their inner sections.

As much as I'd love to say that we are united and ready at Father's command, the Lords and Ladies of the Council simply do not really know the state of this country. Gods, to even say that I'm on a better ground compared to them is a blatant falsehood. Just how many holes have I found in just a few days? Is this just the mouth of the beast? Our treasury, our soldiers, the very foundation of the Kingdom of Nohr, this very castle, is… but a house of sticks.

There's unrest in Krakenburg.

Classes with my siblings have stopped. I've kept with my schedule, because that's the least that's expected of me, but I must admit that not having the little ones around me has been a rather disheartening change of pace. When did I start taking Leo's perfect citations, Camilla's competitive snark, Ignis' fumbling at horse riding, or Norbert's relentless blade for granted? I hate to admit that I didn't expect to miss Azura's and Bismarck's quiet company this much either… And while I may not appreciate Lorraine's defiant personality much...

Gods, Lorraine...

How can I expect our people to fight under us if their King and his children cannot see eye to eye? If _we_ the children cannot do so among ourselves?

I'm left alone in my study, and my eyes wander toward that drawer once more, where Ignis' documents lay. I have run the numbers a few dozen times already, yet part of me still refuses to believe it. My brother wasn't bluffing when he said he could unleash a political catastrophe.

Knowing what I do now… I am disgusted by the… _pilferers_ that make up our noblemen. How long have they been robbing our starving people? I can't fathom how deep this abyss goes, and the more I look, the more my blood boils. This isn't justice.

Aren't we, the nobles, supposed to lead our people by example? Where is the honor in this?

Would you even hear me were I to tell you, Father? Do you really not know…? Ignis is certainly not a fool, Gods, for him to have put together what he did, assistance from the Queen or not… but I think it too naïve for you to be unaware of something as important as this. You've always been a real hero, and an even more outstanding King, yet… I can't help but listen to this voice within me, to these thoughts…

There's unrest in my heart.

Father, I want to believe in you, I really do, but… but I feel like there's a veil on me, one that refuses to leave my eyes no matter how many times I take it off, like a spider's web that keeps being repaired and sewn again no matter how many times I untangle or tear it apart, like a thick sheet of fog that threatens to devour me, one that keeps going on no matter how far I walk, and each time, the veil is thicker than the previous one, and I fear that the spiders who spin these threads are people I've never even doubted.

Throughout my admittedly short life, I've come to understand that I do not know anything. My travels around Nohr have been so incredibly educational, so eye-opening. I've learned much, even if I still don't truly understand it all.

When I finally visited the Windmire, I saw naught but apathy, disinterest, and an utter disdain for myself and everything that I stood for. I know the ministers back then tried to fool me, but I'm well past that kind of trickery.

When I visited that village in the outskirts years ago, I saw suffering, starvation, grief… and I was humbled. How come there can be people living so miserably? Soon after I learned of the blight of our land, and why Father's campaign marches on.

When I visited Armos, I saw more of that darkness that I know the people whisper of behind our backs. I lived through it when I lost Octavius and Fatima. I saw the utter evil that our own people can commit, all because they are desperate enough. At first, I didn't understand it, and to be honest, part of me still refuses to believe it, but… as I am now… I have no other choice but to face it, and I despise it.

All of this… Perhaps I thought too much of the nobility, those who are supposed to lead. Slowly, everything that I think I know is turning to be just an illusion. Everything feels like fog in my hands and eyes.

I am trying to preemptively piece everything I have on my own ends too, yet things are not well within this castle. My siblings are fractured, _I_ am fractured. I do not know what to do but to put on my stone mask and brace whatever's to come, because this house of sticks is tumbling, and I won't be able to hold it from collapsing. I… I don't feel like I'm strong enough to face what is coming now.

What just happened… What has been already done… what is yet to come...

Mother… What should I do?

* * *

**\- The Displaced Seeker -**

"Happy birthday."

Azura greeted me with a languid look that slowly morphed into realization. She didn't say a thing though a number of thoughts clearly ran through her mind, and eventually decided against all of them. She was exhausted, and I couldn't blame her when she was holding out infinitely better than I was.

"I'm… sorry about this," I whimpered. "All of this, I mean…"

She did not answer.

"I…" My words died in my mouth. Whatever excuse I wanted to say, I couldn't follow, and instead the ensnaring, familiar feeling of powerlessness just crept onto my back once more. "It's my fault we're trapped here on your birthday."

"How is your knee doing?" She asked lethargically, clearly not wanting to follow through that conversation. I too took a moment to process the thought, and decided to not follow it either.

"Stings, like always." I replied listlessly. "Is it time for them to come back?"

Her face flashed with anger. "What good will that do anyway? They don't care about us."

A defeated sigh escaped my lips. Azura trembled for a bit as well, but didn't really face me, and in the end focused her attention to the window rather than the inside.

...I couldn't refute her either.

I sighed once more.

"Is it time for the painkillers yet?"

"No."

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Azura, talk to me."

She just looked at me with tired eyes, red from crying silently each night. I weakly sighed in response, exasperation and exhaustion combined.

Seeing her like that hurt; a bit ironic and undeserving… or so the more sardonic part of me screamed.

My stay in Azura's room didn't last long, as we were both whisked away into one of the most distant wings of the castle shortly after I woke up, where Elias and Natasha had received strict orders from the Queen to keep us safe and away from anything that could befall us, and when I say anything, I really mean anything, leaving us in what was house arrest in all but name.

This same sing-song had been going for a few days now, too… I'd try to guess when they'd return and try to pry information from them, always to no avail, for each time they would only grace me with silence, take a rather uncomfortable bath in which I'd be roughly scrubbed and cleaned, take my medicine, and be left in the dark one more day. I could tell that things were by no means good, if still being basically imprisoned said anything. The small grace was that I had not been separated from Azura, with the both of us having been put into the same room, if only to ease the retainers' watch over us, or so I surmised.

Amidst my ocean of issues, being in the dark for such a long time would have been immensely aggravating if not for the fact that my knee was killing me, so for once I focused on myself first, undeserving as it was. Though I did receive some swift treatment both from Azura and some physicians both before and after coming here, I couldn't walk by any means, leaving me confined to my bed. I was in a comparatively better state than I had any right to be, though in many aspects I was close to having a meltdown of my own, but since I hadn't quite reached that point yet (or so I thought) I instead focused on the physical pain; it may not have been the greatest of options, but not dwelling on the other half of the problem was how I managed to keep up.

Still not saying that this method is healthy whatsoever though, as I was caught in a torrent of hysteria of my own ever since waking up; I had finally become unable to sleep at all now, with every single attempt being met with nightmares, as I found myself back within that dark labyrinth where I was chased by… whatever the fuck that was, and running for dear life. Every time my mind drifted, I was met with that cloaked bastard stalking at me, chasing me with no stop or escape, and its damn fucking laugh ringing from the back of my mind; like unnatural white noise amidst the encroaching silence; it was a soft but disturbing sound, and that giggle followed me everywhere within those corridors. Never once did it break into full-on laughter, yet never once did it stop; it just stalked me relentlessly, and I'd always end up in the ground, whimpering with broken legs, and I would abruptly awaken with muffled screams and tears running down. I… couldn't really make clear if it was the thing that chased me in my nightmares or the cloaked bastard. It could be both.

It probably was both.

Little respite came when either Natasha or Elias came in to bathe me and change my clothes, cast and bandages, followed before and after with a check on my knee, and even then, it was during these days that I found the two truly had nothing to say to me. The two of them were more like Garon than I had expected: cold, aloof and incredibly out of touch with interactions like these, and they helped me out of obligation rather than true concern; the one thing I could give them was that they were punctual with attending me, as I never missed a meal or a bath whatsoever. Clearly neither of them were healers, but they still knew how to work with bandages and a staff, probably a byproduct of a lifetime in the battlefield. They would take turns treating and feeding, yet it helped little having both of them to talk to. Natasha was quick and to the point, with a roughness I didn't really appreciate, while Elias was harsh yet more long winded; both of them were awful for two different sets of reasons. Azura had taken it upon herself to help loosen and tidy their work so it was more bearable, which I would forever be grateful for.

Whichever the case, I guessed that Arete strong-armed those two into keeping an eye on us. After all, how bad would it reflect if something happened to her daughter while under their watch? I'm probably just an afterthought here, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Every single other inquiry for our wardens was met with silence too, and they had no patience to deal with my scrawny ass either; Elias and Natasha were not soft with me, even with a broken knee.

Regarding my cellmate, well… That was a topic of its own. Azura herself was also on the verge of breakdown, as she became increasingly stressed and desperate at being unable to leave the room. She rarely slept these days either, with her face being dotted with dark bags under eyes red from crying, and her whole complexion was decrepit.

We… we didn't talk much to be honest. Between dried throats, exhausted bodies on the verge of falling sick, and equally worn minds, we didn't really have much to talk about, or the energy to even try. Azura knew pretty much the same as me regarding how the castle had been devolving in the last number of days, and she wasn't really in her right state of mind to inquire either, nor would I have let her anyway, even if not knowing was eating at me from the inside.

…And so came Azura's 8th birthday, on one lonely 3rd of March which we spent within our cell of a shared room.

There are many things I've been always bad about, and one of the items in that stupidly long list is remembering important dates of all kinds, from birthdays, to anniversaries, to plain festive days. I don't even remember my original birthday, and I had stopped celebrating my birthdays in Nohr altogether ever since my mother's death, like everyone from Azura's group and up too. I don't really remember by heart any of our older sibling's birthdays either… and though Xander has always disapproved, I just have never cared enough to fix it.

...And even if it may be wrong, I've made a point to not remember the birthdays of my dead siblings too. Otherwise it's just… too much.

With so many siblings and the current state of affairs, I'm not even sure how I recalled that it was her birthday even, but I did anyway. Perhaps it was just a bout that pulled me out of my self-absorption or just being bored out of my mind that particular day…

Ironically, remembering that it actually was her birthday only served to twist the knife, as it just reminded me of my own helplessness and uselessness. Curse my own rashness for bringing it up too.

Whatever is going on out there... I hope everyone's holding up okay.

* * *

**\- The Scarred Princess -**

I've never left these four walls; they're all I've ever known my whole life. For as long as I remember, this accursed castle has been my prison and my home, and the shadows that encroach it all that's ever surrounded me. Mother has always taken to this darkness too much.

For a time, I believed that I would too.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I am sorry, Mother."

Even though the whip split my back open, I did not cry. How long has it been since I was punished like this? It feels like forever, yet I know this pain far too well.

"Two years." She droned on as usual. "For two years we had planned Trishula's takedown, and you wasted all that preparation in such a sloppy work, against my orders. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I am sorry, Mother."

The whip slashed again.

"Answer my question."

"I am sorry, Mother."

The promise that Mother would keep punishing me until I lost consciousness until I broke remained unspoken. Yet, we both knew that I would not give in.

"Foolish mutt." Mother snarled as she swung again.

I would not yield.

"Foolish mutt."

I refused to yield.

"Foolish mutt."

I… I cannot break...

"Foolish mutt! Do you understand what you've done!?"

I protected my sister, that's what I did.

"Word has already gotten out, and because of your little stunt, I will have to go to great lengths to calm Lord Garon down, not to say all the scum in the council!"

I did it to protect my sister, and there's nothing wrong with that.

"You can't best the First Prince in combat, even with magic."

One slash.

"You can only defeat the Second with magic, and even then you always disgrace me with your crude displays."

One slash.

"Your magic studies are deplorable against the achievements of the Fourth, one who is much younger than you, the damn fourth brat!"

One more slash. My mother's voice kept rising with every passing slash. My body shrieked though my voice did not leave my mouth once.

"And that's not even mentioning the worthless Third. You couldn't even defeat that _talentless_-" Slash. "_misfigured_-" Slash. "-_rat_ without resorting to mindless violence!"

She finally heaved with another slash.

"I taught you better than that." Her tone shifted. "Apologize."

"I am sorry, Mother."

"Explain why you are apologizing."

"I…" Bile formed in my mouth. "I am sorry for being such a worthless pupil, princess and daughter."

How many times have I given this very same apology? How many times have I been forced to stand down for taking actions of my own? I've lost count.

"So long as you understand." I heard Mother curling the whip, and soon after, a Staff's glow lit the corners of my vision, with my flesh tearing and closing itself again in response.

Though being healed was supposed to be a pleasant experience, it always was the opposite for me. I just clenched my fists against the ground and let the strange sensation run through. It wasn't the same as when others used healing magic. Was it because it was Mother? She was very capable of hiding scars, after all.

But I can't show weakness when my dear sister is like that, not when nobody else will do anything for her… Not Xander, not Father, not Ignis… no one… Lorraine only has me, and I intend to protect her to the end.

"Dress yourself." Mother ordered. "Now that it's come to this, I cannot afford subtleties anymore."

"Yes, Mother."

A breath almost left my mouth, but I managed to stop myself. I took the brim of the dress on my waist, pulling it back on. Such a dress did well to hide the injuries I just received, as did all of the clothing I had; I inadvertently ran my fingers through the base of my neck, and like always, though Mother's healing left no visible marks, everything within hurt.

Mother's fingers expressed her displeasure. I was still too slow for her liking.

I knew Fath- Garon would return soon, by the end of the month according to Mother. I had had little time to do much in these past few days outside of tending to Lorraine, but she'll be safe for now, so I can rest easy for a while. I did make an example out of that wretch.

"We are treading thin ice." Mother warned. "If you disobey one more time, your next punishment will be your last."

You're bluffing, Mother. You cannot kill me. I know-

"Which is why…" Something froze within me when Mother signaled the quiet maid to step forward. I recoiled for once, as I recognized the item in the tray. "As much as it pains me, you will remain in this place."

"N-No…"

Before I noticed, I could not move. No matter how many times I had been subject to this very same punishment, Mother always managed to catch me. I struggled, but my hands could not follow. I looked up, hoping it hadn't been what I feared, but it was useless. Mother had cuffed me to the window, hands above my head.

A dam broke.

"NO!" I screamed, kicking and resisting with strength I didn't know I had left.

Mother's eyes flared with anger as she slapped me.

"Foolish mutt! Don't you see this is all your fault!?" She snarled. "_You_ forced me to this. _You_ brought this upon yourself. If you cannot do something as simple as following my commands, then I must use other means!""

"Mother… please…"

Mother's eyes flashed for a moment, right before she returned to her usual expressionless mask.

"Feed her as per usual. Bathe her once a day, and tend to her other basic necessities." Mother instructed the maid. "If she screams, you may Silence her, and if she resists, you may punish her, so long it doesn't leave scars."

"Yes, Lady van Ross."

"You can't do this..."

Mother turned to face me, her eyes cold.

"P-please… Mother…" I finally whimpered. "I promise to be good."

Mother smiled. "And let you go meet that piece of rotting meat?"

My heart stopped.

"M-Mother… I beg you…"

"You've been mingling far too much with the other children," She said, and her voice shifted again, this time faking sadness. "I am only doing what is necessary to protect you and ensure your future, even if it breaks my heart."

"Mother… please…"

Mother cupped my head with both hands, and gave me that disgusting smile. "Camilla? What have I told you about tears?"

When did…? Why…? Did I… break…?

"Camilla?"

"A…" My voice cracked. "A l-lady of the van… v-van Ross family must be- be impeccable at all t-times."

"Yes. And?"

"A-and, as the f-future Crown P-Princess, I b-bear a respon... responsibility, above e-even that."

"That is correct, my dear." Mother smiled again. "Which is why you have thirty- no, twenty seconds to dry them."

Following her instructions… I did… I smiled, though it hurt inside, though everything within me couldn't do so, _I smiled_.

"A good start." Her grin grew in return. "Now, I have to clean up your little mess, so you'll be a good girl and stay put."

"Y-Yes.. Mother…"

Happy with herself, Mother wiped herself with a handkerchief from the maids, then seized me once more. I did my best to keep my smile. And so, she left, leaving me entrapped in this accursed room.

"If I find a single imperfection on her skin, you and your co-workers will lose your heads." I heard my Mother from outside the room.

"Y-yes…"

I was left alone to my devices once more...

My fault? Not leaving scars? I don't care about any of that. I can't stay here… I need to reach Lorraine. I can't leave her alone…That wretch tried to kill my sister, of course I wouldn't let her! I'm not wrong, I couldn't let her live, even if it made Mother angry.

When I think of my little sister, confined in that bed, so powerless, unable to do anything but watch the window… it fills me with rage. Nobody would do anything for her, nobody would protect her, so I would… but I can't do it from here, trapped in this damn place.

I'm going to get out, I don't care what I have to do. Lorraine is everything I have left.

* * *

**Author's Note: Still not dead yet, but between irl stuff and more, I haven't worked consistently on this, but this is far from dead (or so I tell myself, but I know I should be more consistent). Big thanks to DestructionDragon360 for beta'ing once more for this chapter, and you should totally check 'Heavy is the Head' and 'Madly in Love' from her, they're also great FE works, so look them up! Also thanks to Morskijez for always being so supportive and throwing some ideas back and forth, and any of you guys for reading.**

**Join us at the Fanfiction Treehouse! 9XG3U7a**

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